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LETTERS  OF 
SARAH  WYMAN  WHITMAN 


LETTERS  OF 
SARAH  WYMAN  WHITMAN 


CAMBRIDGE 

PRINTED  AT   THE   RIVERSIDE   PRESS 

1907 


EDITORIAL    NOTE 

This  little  collection  is  made  for  Mrs. 
Whitman's  friends.  If  it  awakens  some 
echo  of  that  courage  and  faith  which  her 
living  presence  inspired,  the  object  of  its 
publication  will  be  fulfilled. 

Through  her  letters  we  catch  new  real- 
ization of  the  high  pressure  at  which  she 
lived.  Yet  no  one  ever  found  her  too  oc- 
cupied to  listen  to  the  call  of  friendship, 
for  to  her  its  master  word  was  service. 

The  impression  which  her  generous 
conception  of  life  and  friendship  made  on 
those  who  came  into  close  relation  with 
her  is  best  given  by  a  few  extracts  from 
letters  from  one  and  another  of  her  friends : 

*^JVhen  she  went  out  of  this  worlds  it 
seemed  as  if  the  high  light  had  gone  from 
everything" 

[v] 


ivi718S9 


^^We  cannot  really  lose  a  friend  like  her, 
thank  Heaven  !  There  never  was  such  beau- 
tiful ready  affectionateness,  such  self-forget- 
fulness  or  such  eagerness  to  help  her  friends  at 
every  turn  to  make  the  most  of  their  own  con- 
ditions and  surroundings  and  associates;  and 
this  without  any  petty  love  of  power  over  other 
people's  lives  ^  or  jealousy^  or  wounded  self -love  y 
if  her  way  and  advice  were  not  followed.  She 
told  you  what  she  thought,  but  there  she  ended ; 
and  almost  never  thought  wrong,  it  seems  to 
me  now,  or  held  her  beliefs  and  opinions  more 
lightly  or  more  strongly  because  others  would 
not  accept  them.  It  was  a  heavenly  sort  of 
patience  and  self-control  in  a  most  ardent  and 
impulsive  nature ;  her  advice  never  seemed, 
either,  to  spring  from  the  least  or  first  consid- 
eration of  her  own  advantage!' 

"  There  is  much  in  these  letters  which 
would  be  illuminating  to  any  who  should  read 
them,  and  fulfil  our  object  of  perpetuating  that 
personality  whose  expression  by  act  and  look 
and  spoken  or  written  word  has  been  the  wine 
[  vi  ] 


and  joy  of  life  to  us.  If  we  could  embody  in  a 
hook  the  conviction  which  she  conveyed  of  the 
glory  of  lifcy  and  its  deep  ultimate  meaning 
which  made  all  things  worth  while y  it  would 
he  a  great  light  shed  on  the  path  of  many  T 

"  *  Give  to  him  that  asketh '  seemed  to  he 
this  true  friend's  rule  of  life^  and  as  Sir 
Thomas  Browne  counselled:  *  Give  where 
mens  necessities^  not  their  tongues,  loudly  call 
for  mercy,'  Tears  ago  when  some  one  was 
complaining  that  S,  W,  neglected  her  work 
at  the  studio  for  other  things ,  and  that  her 
gifts  as  an  artist  lacked  a  development  to 
which  the  practice  and  discipline  of  entire 
devotion  might  have  hrought  them ;  *  ^h  !  ' 
said  another  friend  quickly,  *  hut  she  has  made 
the  choice  hetween  living  for  Art's  sake  and 
living  for  Love's  sake,  and  we  must  not  quar- 
rel with  that,"' 

Letters  of  so  essentially  intimate  a  char- 
acter as  Mrs.  Whitman's  can  only  be  pub- 
lished at  some  sacrifice  of  reticence.  Mrs. 
Whitman  was  at  once  the  most  impersonal 
[vii] 


and  the  most  personal  of  friends.  She 
never  stopped  long  in  the  outer  courts  of 
friendship.  Therefore  no  letters  which 
expressed  her  at  all  could  be  devoid  of  per- 
sonality. 

If  the  veil  of  privacy  seems  to  be  unduly 
lifted,  let  it  be  remembered  how  freely 
she  gave  her  love,  experience,  and  wisdom, 
so  perhaps  to  those  who  cherish  her  mem- 
ory her  words  may  come  as  one  more  gift 
from  generous  hands. 


CONTENTS 

Letters  to 

Miss  G.  Schuyler  i 

The  Misses  Timmins  i6 

Miss  Minna  Timmins  i8 

Mrs.  Bigelow  Lawrence  28 

Dr.  Richard  C.  Cabot  44 

Miss  Sarah  Orne  Jewett  61 

The  Misses  Smith  no 

Mrs.  James  T.  Fields  120 

Mrs.  Richard  M.  Hunt  121 

Mrs.  Henry  Parkman  126 

Major  Henry  L.  Higginson  151 

J.  Templeman  Coolidge  152 

Miss  Elizabeth  Franklin  156 

Miss  Evelyn  Rich  162 
[ix] 


CONTENTS 

Miss  Charlotte  G.  Greeley  172 

Mrs.  Charles  Lawton  178 

Henry  Parkman,  Jr.  182 

Penelope  Parkman  183 

Professor  William  James  185 

Passages  from  a  Note-Book  216 

Undated  Notes  234 

To  S,  G,  r.  254 


LETTERS  OF 
SARAH  WYMAN  WHITMAN 


LETTERS  :  iiviv. 

TO   MISS   G.  SCHUYLER** 

7  Chestnut  Street,  Boston,  October  lo,  1874. 

I  THINK  the  last  note  was  from  Newbury- 
port,  where  Lizzy  and  I  finished  our  sketch- 
ing, and  departed  reluctantly  for  the  town. 
There  never  was  a  better  field  for  work, 
from  the  tender  willows  along  the  road, 
and  by  the  edges  of  the  marsh,  all  the 
way  through  picturesque  fields  and  sturdy 
apple-orchards  up  to  groups  of  austere 
poplar  trees,  which  hold  a  wonderful 
charm  for  me.  .  .  .  And  so,  I  suppose, 
comes  the  end  of  out  of  doors  for  this  sum- 
mer, though  this  "deepening  of  color"  fills 
me  still  with  a  passion  of  desire  for  the  sea 
and  sky  all  over  again,  and  I  feel  a  nig- 
gardly reluctance  at  the  passing  of  each 
October  day.  But  you  will  not  need  me 

[I  ] 


LETTERS 

to  tell  you  how  fast  the  working  wheels 

:  (':      arc'  afe'eddy  beginning  to  grind,  nor  how  at 

;  .j**:.he4i>t  I  gm' ready  and  willing  to  begin.  1 

'"*'"*  feel  a  fresh  ardor,  born  of  summer  and  good 

things,  if  only  the  dear  gifts  may  prove 

their  use  to  me.  ...  I  have  decided  to  work 

here  in  my  new  studio  (oh,  Georgy,  please 

care  a  little  for  it,  won't  you?),  having 

made  an  arrangement  for  renting  it  later, 

and  then  go  abroad  the  first  of  January,  and 

taking  three  or  four  months,  see  four  or 

perhaps  five  of  the  best  galleries,  and  only 

this. 

Ah,  I  long  to  talk  with  you  of  it  all,  this 
is  so  slow  when  words  press,  and  I  want  to 
tell  you  what  and  why  and  when  all  in  a 
breath.  .  .  . 

Isn't  it  beautiful  to  go,  as  you  are  going 
now,  accumulating  at  every  hand,  and  then 
have  leave  to  pour  it  forth,  changed,  mag- 
nified, even,  —  if  God  will  have  it  so  — 
even  more. 

[2] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

After  an  accident  in  driving. 

November  15,  1874. 

It  was  a  blessed  escape  from  a  great  dan- 
ger, and  I  can  only  feel  an  almost  overpow- 
ering gratitude  as  I  think  of  it.  The  instant 
before  the  throw  was  one  of  those  great 
moments  when  it  seems  as  if  one  caught  a 
glimpse  of  the  beyond,  and  I  feel  now  as 
if  I  had  come  back  from  somewhere. 

7  Chestnut  St.,  December  3,  1874. 

Ah,  dear  Georgy,  we  will  indeed  "  under- 
stand," and  without  the  paltriness  of  either 
question  or  answer  know  and  apprehend 
each  other.  Not  what,  but  how  deeply  has 
the  soul  endured  ?  That  is  all  a  friend  de- 
mands, and  that  is  met,  not  by  reply,  but 
is  found  in  the  result,  in  what  is  here  pre- 
sent and  evident.  ...  I  am  myself  again 
now,  but  oh,  so  glad  over  the  escape  from 
more  serious  things.  Neither  can  I  really 
regret  the  accident,  for  it  brought  some 

[3] 


LETTERS 

strangely  tender  things  in  with  it,  and  has 
told  me  some  things  I  did  not  know  be- 
fore. One  can't  help  wondering  over  the 
potency  of  larger  things  over  less ;  one  good 
stern  fact  shakes  into  right  relation  a  mul- 
titude of  crude  theories,  and  is  a  most  val- 
uable tonic. 

Paris,  February  2,  1875.  (Hotel  de  TAmiraute.) 

I  must  send  you  one  little  word  just  to 
say  that  we  are  safe  and  comfortable  and 
delighted,  here  in  Paris.  .  .  .  Arrived  at 
the  Hotel,  our  little  Madame  was  smiling 
upon  the  steps,  and  we  were  established 
with  a  bright  fire,  a  delicious  little  dinner 
and  smiles  galore.  ...  I  shall  not  soon  for- 
get the  day  in  London,  nor  what  you  were 
in  it  to  me.  Dear  Georgy,  it  was  so  sweet 
of  you  and  you  humored  our  little  enthu- 
siasms with  such  sympathy.  ...  It  is  so 
good  too,  to  have  seen  my  first  really  great 
sights  with  you.  Now  I  have  seen  others 

[4] 


OF  MRS.   WHITMAN 

too,  going  every  day  to  the  Louvre,  and 
finding  joy  and  inspiration  in  it,  as  you 
will  know. 

Florence,  Hotel  Corona  d*  Italia,  February,  1875. 

The  first  look  at  Italy  was  fraught  with 
a  fine  touch  of  satire,  for  the  morning  broke 
only  to  discover  a  heavy  snow  storm.  .  .  . 
However,  having  telegraphed  to  the  Hotel, 
we  were  received  at  the  station  and  soon 
established,  and  oh,  Georgy,  did  n't  I  wake 
the  next  morning  to  see  first  of  all  out  of 
my  window  the  very  leaves  on  a  tree  such 
as  Titian  and  Veronese  painted !  With  the 
yellow  walls  beyond,  and  a  little  child  sing- 
ing at  the  casement !  This  strange  beau- 
tiful Florence,  how  mellow  it  seems  after 
the  crisp  modern  look  of  Paris,  as  if  the 
group  of  buildings  with  dark  eaves  and 
sober  windows  had  grown  up  out  of  the 
ground  along  with  the  grave  cypresses  and 
cedars  which  bear  them  company.  Already 

[5] 


LETTERS 

we  have  seen  much,  the  chapel  of  the 
Medici  first  with  the  Michael  Angelo 
statues.  Ah,  he  is  indeed  "  Angelo  against 
the  world." 

Rome,   March  i,  1875. 

It  Strengthens  my  fibres  to  know  you 
believe  in  me,  and  some  day  we  will  in- 
deed "beat  our  music  out.''  .  .  .  We  are 
established  at  the  Costanzi  in  the  most 
perfect  place,  an  apartment  overlooking 
the  city,  and  fronting  the  street  west,  with 
a  balcony  on  which  one  may  stand  and 
aspire!  I  can  think  of  nothing  else  that 
expresses  the  sense  of  the  great  presence 
spread  out  before  one.  .  .  .  Even  yet  I  turn 
a  longing  thought  back  to  Florence.  We 
found  such  rich  places  there,  and  going 
daily  to  the  galleries  grew  familiar  with 
certain  most  delicious  pictures,  which  one 
cannot  easily  lose  the  presence  of.  Gior- 
gione  was  revealed  to  me  in  Florence,  and 
[6] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

it  is  in  Florence  that  the  spirit  of  Michael 
Angelo  seems  everywhere  present  and  com- 
pelling, and  Lucca  della  Robbia,  the  Beato 
Angelico, —  ah,  how  high  and  beautiful 
they  all  were,  and  what  long  lessons  one 
learns  and  in  how  many  ways,  as  one  comes 
face  to  face  with  the  great  verities  of  Art 
which  their  hands  have  fashioned !  It  is 
the  old,  old  story  of  life,  a  "patient  con- 
tinuance; ''  an  abiding  purpose. 

Paris,  Easter  Day,  1875. 

I  must  take  you  to  myself  in  a  little  lov- 
ing word,  on  this  dearest  day,  which  seems 
to  come  with  a  curious  distinctness  and 
beauty,  here  in  a  strange  land,  and  so  far 
from  home  and  its  associations.  But  Easter 
is  Easter  everywhere,  and  perhaps  one  is  all 
the  more  conscious  of  its  essence  when  the 
surroundings  that  usually  bear  it  company 
are  no  longer  present.  I  woke  this  morning 
with  a  little  homesick  pang  at  first,  I  will 

[7] 


LETTERS 

own,  and  you  will  know  what  pleasure  it 
was,  when  I  found  a  note  and  such  a  wealth 
of  flowers  from  my  dear  Class.  They  had 
sent  by  Lizzy  this  little  choice  commission, 
and  it  was  a  very  dear  thought  that  glad- 
dened the  glad  day.  ...  I  must  run  back  a 
little  way,  for  I  long  to  tell  you  one  word 
of  Venice  and  what  it  was  to  me.  I  feel  like 
writing  over  Italy,  Visions;  for  it  was  there 
that  there  came  such  a  revelation  of  great- 
ness, such  a  new  faith  in  the  possibilities 
of  Art.  And  Venice  is  the  crown  of  Italy, 
with  its  royal  gallery  and  endless  churches, 
full  of  beauty.  Of  course  everywhere  I 
would  except  the  Sistine  Chapel,  which  is 
incomparable;  but  that  belongs  no  longer 
to  the  realm  of  possible  work,  being  a 
fresco,  and  so  one  comes  to  the  Venetian 
school  with  a  sense  of  having  found  the 
ultimatum  (of  all  things  that  have  been) 
of  Painting  in  its  several  departments, 
where  color,  light,  and  composition  are 
[8] 


OF  MRS.   WHITMAN 

all  in  perfection.  So  day  by  day,  we  went 
about,  finding  those  rare  pictures,  which 
begin  with  the  Assumption,  and  are  beau- 
tiful all  the  way  through,  and  though  I 
had  imagined  much,  they  far  outran  me ! 
Tintoretto  was  a  joy  and  surprise  all  at 
once.  I  had  no  thought  of  his  being  so 
great,  though  to  be  sure  I  had  occasionally 
heard  him  spoken  of  in  comparison  with 
Titian.  I  should  never  think  of  comparing 
him,  for  that  is  one  of  the  things  which 
cannot  be  done  with  really  great  men,  and 
so  I  feel  that  whether  it  is  Titian,  with  his 
melodious  painting,  or  Tintoretto,  amaz- 
ing you  by  his  marvellous  and  unmatched 
imagination,  or  Veronese,  with  that  royal 
elegance  which  is  all  his  own,  they  stand 
out  in  their  own  integrity,  offering  their 
own  gifts.  ...  It  was  a  temptation,  yes, 
a  very  great  one,  to  stay  at  Venice,  but  we 
never  altered  our  first  conviction  that  the 
place  to  work  in  was  Paris ;  and  both  Lizzy 

[9] 


LETTERS 

and  I  were  equally  sure  that  some  work 
was  the  best  thing  for  us :  something  which 
should  give  us  a  chance  to  test  this  and  that 
process  in  the  very  face  of  good  things.  So 
we  went  on,  making  the  through  trip  from 
Venice  here  without  stopping  and  reached 
our  dear  old  quarters  at  seven  o'clock  Satur- 
day evening.  Madame,  indeed  the  whole 
household,  was  ready  for  us  with  roses  and 
violets  in  our  rooms,  and  everything  sweet 
and  fresh,  while  a  pile  of  forty-two  letters 
were  on  the  table !  .  .  .  Well,  we  were  not 
very  long  in  beginning,  and  every  day  go  to 
the  Louvre,  painting  many  things,  learn- 
ing something,  I  must  believe.  And  as 
we  did  all  our  little  jobs  when  we  were 
here  before,  we  have  uninterrupted  time 
for  study,  and  often  go  in  the  afternoon  to 
the  Luxembourg,  while  we  turn  the  even- 
ings to  account  by  sitting  for  each  other 
alternately  !  In  this  way  we  get  a  chance 
to  work  from  life,  which  is  delightful, 
[lo] 


OF  MRS.   WHITMAN 

Liverpool,  April  19,  1875. 

Lizzy  and  I  were  not  sorry  to  see  the 
National  Gallery  again  (where  you  took 
us  for  that  first  look!)  and  beside  we  had 
the  Bethnal  Green  Collection,  which  was 
a  feast  indeed  more  than  we  had  dreamed 
of,  with  best  of  all  three  beautiful  Velas- 
quez, such  as  all  we  had  seen  before  had 
not  given  of  his.  With  the  exception  of 
one  of  Titian's  portraits,  none  (no  por- 
trait I  mean)  had  seemed  to  me  so  great 
as  one  of  these  of  a  little  boy.  It  is  full  of 
that  sweet  seriousness  of  childhood  which 
is  so  ineffable,  a  rare  picture  indeed. 

Boston,  May  23,  1875. 

Oh,  Georgy,  my  thought  has  gone  to 
you  a  hundred  times  in  all  the  rich  delight 
of  returning  to  so  much  that  I  love;  for 
in  spite  of  all  Europe,  I  came  back  with 
that  strange  joy  that  belongs  to  home  and 
country,   and  found   a   new   meaning   in 

[ "] 


LETTERS 

many  things.  You  had  my  very  last  word 
from  the  other  side ;  so  you  know  all  up 
to  that  place,  and  there  is  little  to  tell  of 
the  sea,  as  one  grewsome  word  would 
cover  the  whole  voyage.  I  was  sick  —  oh, 
very  sick  —  nearly  all  the  way  and  have 
lost  most  of  my  pride  and  won  a  large  hu- 
mility in  consequence !  .  .  .  That  myste- 
rious trunk  was  unpacked  with  universal 
satisfaction  and  its  contents  are  now  scat- 
tered afar,  only  we  wished  we  had  brought 
many  more  autre s  comme  ca  !  The  duty  on 
pictures  now  is  only  ten  per  cent,  but  it 
was  against  one's  liking  somewhat  to  pay 
that  even,  when  velvet  gowns  and  all  man- 
ner of  gauds  can  be  brought  ad  infinitum  I 
But  some  day  we  shall  have  a  free  country 
that  is  free. 

August  5,  Beverly  Farms  (1880  or  1881). 

Don't  you  know  those  periods  when  all 
one  cares  for  seem  like  active  presences 


OF  MRS.   WHITMAN 

within  ?  Most  vital  and  most  strong  ?  These 
are  the  moments  when  it  seems  indeed  as 
if  faith  and  love  could  move  mountains, 
and  which  appear  to  insure  the  future  as 
well  as  to  reveal  the  meanings  of  the  past. 
Don't  you  remember  that  somewhere  in 
the  Bible  it  speaks  of  "  past  mysteries  ?  " 
And  I  always  wonder  why  mysteries  are 
supposed  to  lie  ahead  of  us,  when  yester- 
day and  to-day  seem  to  me  far  more  deeply 
hidden  from  our  sight.  ...  I  wanted  so 
much  to  hear  Mr.  Brooks's  Sermon  on 
Dean  Stanley,  it  was  only  the  week  before 
that  he  came  and  spent  a  night  with  me, 
and  he  spoke  of  him  with  such  devotion 
and  warmth.  This  little  visit  from  Mr. 
Brooks  has  been  one  of  my  real  pleasures 
this  summer,  he  talked  with  great  freedom 
of  himself  and  other  things,  and  I  found 
him  more  simple  and  childlike  than  ever. 
Oh,  how  many  things  I  want  to  tell  you. 
.  .  .  Yet  perhaps  it  could  all  be  com- 

[13] 


LETTERS 

pressed  into  the  one  statement  that  life  — 
life  is  ever  more  vast  and  full  and  wonder- 
ful to  me.  Along  with  this  knowledge 
runs  the  daily  round  —  the  come  and  go 
of  every  day,  in  a  summer  more  than  ever 
full  of  many  people  and  much  to  do.  But 
so  far  I  have  been  able  to  work  at  my  own 
things  here  and  there  at  least,  and  have 
five  portraits  on  hand  just  now. 

Written  after  Phillips  Brooks's  fiineral. 

January  26,  1893. 

It  was  dear  to  me  to  get  your  message 
in  the  midst  of  these  sacred  days  and  I 
bless  you  for  it !  If  Mr.  Brooks  had  died 
a  year  ago,  I  could  not  have  borne  it  for 
him,  but  in  the  last  wonderful  year  he  has 
made  one  great  movement  forward,  has 
preached  in  every  parish,  has  made  him- 
self the  friend  of  every  rector,  and  set  up 
a  spiritual  standard  in  the  whole  state.  It 
seems  indeed  as  if  he  had  set  his  earthly 
[  H] 


OF  MRS.   WHITMAN 

house  in  order ;  and  I  have  never  seen  him 
so  much  at  peace  as  this  winter.  So,  when 
he  went  swiftly  out  of  our  sight  there  was  in 
it  a  kind  of  splendor,  which  cannot  let  one 
remember  that  one*s  heart  aches;  one  can 
only  feel  the  beauty  and  delight  of  it  and 
so  go  on. 


[IS] 


LETTERS 

TO   MISS   MINNA   TIMMINS  AND 
MISS   GEMMA   TIMMINS 

May  13,  1886. 

This  is  to  say  to  two  very  dear  children 
that  they  are  quite  as  dear  on  the  rolling 
prairie  as  in  these  narrow  streets.  ...  I 
have  gone  on  in  a  dull  way  (when  there 
came  a  lucid  interval  in  the  annals  of  house- 
building) matronizing  costume  parties,  and 
having  the  whole  artistic  fraternity,  in 
squads,  to  dinner,  and  having  more  studio 
talk  than  for  years  past.  French  has  just 
made  a  really  charming  thing,  a  frieze  for 
the  mantle-piece  of  his  Concord  atelier,  a 
wreath  of  dancing  maidens,  full  of  melody, 
and  with  the  promise — that  opulent  pro- 
mise !  —  of  everything  that  is  fair,  which 
belongs  to  the  happy  or  fortunate  sketch. 
.  .  .  And  how  do  you  fare,  dear  Ombra  and 
Gemma  ?  I  have  no  fears ;  and  yet  I  shall 

[  16] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

like  a  message  of  assurance  when  you  are 
having  that  long  San  Franciscan  stretch 
that  your  list  prescribes,  for  by  that  time 
you  will  have  had  your  experience  as  indi- 
viduals and  as  —  most  terrible!  "a  party." 
But  in  this  case  it  is  a  delightful  party,  to 
every  member  of  which  I  send  my  most 
cordial  remembrance. 

I  think  I  am  conscious  of  a  slightly 
malign  joy  in  thinking  of  Mr.  Brooks,  to 
whom  the  world  is  a  purely  masculine 
world,  in  so  large  an  assemblage  of  femi- 
nine import.  But  it  will  have  no  lasting 
effect,  he  will  come  home  to  his  pulpit, 
and  looking  —  comme  ioujours  —  upon  that 
sea  of  upturned  bonnets  will  say  that  he 
speaks  to  each  young  man,  etc.,  etc.,  comme 
toujours  again!  All  this,  jest:  and  yet  little 
Beau  and  I  are  not  in  especially  jesting 
mood,  in  fact  we  are  so  serious,  that  for 
fear  of  revealing  it,  we  had  just  better  send 
our  love  and  be  off. 

[17] 


LETTERS 
TO   MISS   MINNA   TIMMINS 

October,  1886. 

It  is  not  your  birthday  but  yourself 
which  has  been  so  present  a  thought  in 
these  last  days ;  and  to-night,  as  I  look  out 
at  the  pale  stars  and  the  shining  light- 
houses, I  dream  a  little  over  this  quarter  of 
a  century  that  is  to  come  for  my  dear  child. 

That  divine  gift  of  impulse  is  like  an 
uncut  jewel,  and  it  is  the  edges  of  study 
and  work  which  are  to  make  it  capable 
of  reflecting,  as  so  many  precious  things  do, 
so  I  welcome  a  little  more  stringency  —  a 
girding  up  of  the  loins,  all  that  befits  the 
good  soldier. 

When  you  spoke  of  some  special  work 
I  thought  of  the  schools ;  classes  where 
you  could  help  not  only  the  children,  but 
their  work  as  well :  giving  those  stimulat- 
ing aids  that  go  towards  getting  their  little 

[  18] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

hearts  involved  with  what  they  are  about. 
Everywhere  in  the  doing  of  what  we  do, 
more  recognition  of  the  divinity  and  the 
necessity  (to  God)  of  the  task.  All  this 
those  who  see  must  make  known  to  those 
who  see  not. 

Should  you  feel  disposed  to  something 
in  this  direction  ?  And  have  you  any  clues  ? 
Or  shall  we  go  to  work  to  find  some? 
Then — but  dear,  talking  is  better;  and 
we  will  speak  face  to  face  speedily.  Indeed 
I  only  write  to-night  because  I  have  you 
in  my  heart;  and  because  I  want  to  tell 
you  how  dear  to  me  was  your  message — 
the  birthday  letter  —  which  I  shall  not 
forget.  God  bless  you. 

March,  1887. 

I  can't  come  from  the  heats  and  con- 
tentions of  the  "Gay  Tabor"  and  not  re- 
port to  you,  my  far-off  child,  and  so  you 
must  know  that  we  had  a  meeting  full  of 

[19] 


LETTERS 

illustrious  ones,  with  W.  James  and  Wald- 
stein  as  special  comets  beside  our  own  fixed 

stars,  while brought  a  friend  or  two, 

and  went  walking  about  with  his 

handsome  head  among  the  rafters  (always 
supposing  there  are  any  rafters!).  So  you 
see  it  was  a  large  evening:  yet  a  little 
lonely  withal.  After  a  time  we  formed  into 
a  great  round  ring  and  brought  Holmes 
to  bear  upon  his  question  once  more,  over 
which  there  was  some  very  good  talk,  and 
I  think  Royce  held  his  own  with  quiet  cer- 
tainty; touching  a  fundamental  principle, 
I  think,  when  he  said  that  there  was  really 
no  thought  without  emotion,  and  no  emo- 
tion free  from  thought;  and  so  truth  in 
its  essential  elements  must  flow  to  us 
through  both  these  channels.  Also  James 
said  that,  looked  at  from  one  point  of  view, 
the  artist  was  like  any  other  man,  except 
for  the  greater  rapidity  of  his  intuitions : 
what  he   saw   at  once   others  saw  more 

[20] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

slowly.  We  '11  talk  this  all  over  some  time, 
darling,  when  you  return  from  the  moun- 
tain slopes,  and  bring  the  messages  that 
the  hills  have  given  you,  and  meantime, 
we  in  the  valley  go  along  as  best  we  may, 
and  keep  at  the  treadmill  and  "trust  the 
larger  hope,''  as  Mr.  Tennyson  said  so 
long  ago.  I  wonder  if  you  took  the  new 
Browning  with  you?  If  you  didn't,  tell 
me  and  I  will  send  it  to  you:  for  there 
are  some  splendid  places  in  it;  things  of 
a  large  significance :  and  with  strains  like 
Paracelsus.   .   .  . 

I  finish  this  incompetent  note  after  a 
short  interval,  which  has  been  crammed 
with  affairs  of  all  sorts,  painting  which  is 
called  work,  and  work  which  is  called 
play,  until  this  evening  at  Mr.  Lowell's 
lecture,  full  of  delicate  and  discriminating 
touches  but  lacking  somewhat,  it  seemed 
to  me,  vitality  and  largeness.  But  this  may 
have  been  my  bad  temper. 

[21] 


LETTERS 

"Gay  Tabor  Night/'  March  19,  1887. 

It  would  not  be  quite  possible  to  have 
the  evening  and  not  bring  you  into  it,  .  .  . 
and  so  here  is  a  little  message  w^ritten  fresh 
from  the  studio,  where,  with  the  variety 
which  accompanies  our  unity,  the  num- 
ber was  small  instead  of  large,  and  marked 
by  little  groups  instead  of  one  big  Saturnic 
ring  !  Gemma  will  have  told  you  of  it,  and 
ofthe  strange  little  Russian  Jew,  .  .  .  who, 
atop  of  a  slight,  almost  meagre,  figure,  wore 
a  head  which  was  like  a  picture,  keenly 
and  delicately  drawn,  with  locks  that  were 
almost  Hyacinthine.  Altogether  a  most 
interesting  personality,  and  one  from  which 
I  think  something  must  come,  some  day. 

With  the  facility  of  his  race  he  has 
a  passion  for  languages  and  knows  almost 
everything,  including  Arabic,  with  its  my- 
riad vocabulary. 

I  can't  tell  you  how  it  touched  me  to 
look  at  this  young  creature  and  remember 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

that  the  last  talk  I  had  about  the  Russian 
Jews  was  with  Emma  Lazarus,  whose  pas- 
sionate heart  was  wrung  by  their  wrongs, 
and  who  even  now,  as  she  lies  dying  in 
Paris,  is  dreaming  of  them  and  writing 
the  sorrowful  songs  of  her  race. 

Did  you  see  in  the  last  "  Century  **  the 
Prose  Poems  ?  they  were  almost  wonderful, 
with  here  and  there  a  touch  of  real  im- 
aginative splendor,  but  she  is  worn  thread- 
bare by  illness,  and  so  the  work  suffers. 
I  think  she  will  like  to  die  near  the  place 
where  Heine's  soul  went  forth. 

April  26,  1887. 

I  have  just  found  among  loose  papers 
an  Easter  letter  to  you,  .  .  .  and  am  some- 
what "fashed''  at  the  sight!  ...  I  wish  it 
had  gone  from  my  hand  to  yours,  with  a 
white  Easter  rose  and  a  white  Easter  wish. 
In  its  place  I  will  put  this  new  message, 
written  at  the  end  of  a  day  a  mile  long. 


LETTERS 

and  with  a  great  deal  of  civilization  in  it, 
but  not  much  life.  But  I  will  tell  you  when 
I  wanted  you :  last  night,  at  Mr.  Dresel's, 
when  he  gave  Bach's  Magnificat  with  his 
own  chorus,  which,  all  winter  long,  has 
been  hammering  out  the  deep,  difficult 
beauty  of  that  great  work,  and  finally  came 
to  its  presentation.  I  think  I  never  had  a 
purer  musical  joy.  It  was  one  splendid, 
celestial  round  ring  of  song,  and  took  one, 
all  travel-stained  as  one  was,  away  where 
it  is  eternal  dawn,  where  the  eyes  of  Bea- 
trice shine. 

Outside  the  low  voice  of  the  organ  was 
the  river,  and  within,  they  who  sang  were 
so  in  it,  that  they  looked  like  a  painted 
picture  of  singing  men  and  women.  Ah, 
you  will  see  how  it  was,  and  that  it  was  a 
great  gift  to  me. 

There  seem  to  be  a  thousand  things  to 
speak  of,  out  of  this  work-a-day  world  to 
you  living  in  the  wide  air,  and  on  the  edge 

[24] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

of  the  sky.  .  .  .  Your  last  message  left  you 
just  on  the  edge  of  Schopenhauer  and  his 
bitterly  acute  deductions  regarding  the 
human  Spirit,  and  I  long  to  know  how  his 
Will-Philosophy  touched  your  understand- 
ing. Tell  me  about  it;  for  I  know  that 
however  one  may  look  at  Schopenhauer, 
one  is  sure  to  get  from  him  some  piercing 
rays  of  light  cast  upon  the  human  ma- 
chinery. 

I  read  the  other  day  a  little  book  on  the 
Foundations  of  Ethics  which  William 
James  edited,  that  cleared  up  a  good  deal 
of  philosophic  underbrush,  and  so  had  value 
in  determining  the  meanings  of  terms,  and 
as  soon  as  I  get  my  copy  back  I  will  send 
it  to  you,  and  an  article  on  the  Mind  Cure ; 
which  latter  cult  is  taking  a  very  tremen- 
dous hold  on  people  hereabouts.  I  wish 
you  could  hear  some  of  the  really  fine 
spiritual  points  which  are  made  by  those 
who  have  had  experience  there.  ...  I  be- 
C^5] 


LETTERS 

Heve  everything  looks  towards  a  strange, 
new,  uplift  of  the  Spirit;  a  larger  influx 
of  the  Divine, 

"  That  heart  and  mind  according  well 
May  make  one  music  as  before. 
But  vaster.'* 

December  5. 

I  have  waited  till  the  birthday  has  really 
come  in,  my  beloved  child,  to  tell  you 
how  much  it  was  to  me  to  find  that  gold 
and  white  token  at  my  door,  to  have  the 
note  warm  in  my  pocket  and  warmer  in 
my  heart.  It  is  gifts  like  these  with  the 
possession  of  which  one  is  newborn,  and 
seems  to  enter  on  a  new  year  as  if  it  were 
a  glorious  Kingdom.  Indeed  the  day  should 
be  sacred  to  giving  rather  than  receiving, 
in  sign  of  loving  gratitude,  and  I  send  to 
you  dear  children  a  fresh  measure  of  the 
love  which  is  always  yours,  and  to-day 
yours  with  a  prayer  of  faith.  God  bless 
you. 

[26] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

The  little  silver  thing  and  the  little  gold 
thing  strung  on  one  thread  greeted  me 
returning,  and  pleased  me  more  than  I  can 
say,  beloved  children.  They  speak  in  the 
true  "  universal  language,"  where  there  is 
every  tense,  but  only  the  possessive  case, 
and  no  accusative  at  all ! 

The  last  Dante  comes  to-morrow  you 
know ;  the  last  of  that  great  journey  which 
we  have  beheld  as  in  a  vision,  and  in  these 
final  chapters  all  terrestrial  elements  have 
gone  away  utterly;  there  is  nothing  but 
the  pure  flame  of  the  spirits  in  heaven. 

I  must  tell  you  that  the  windows  are 
not  so  far  advanced  as  was  planned,  and  it 
will  yet  be  some  time  before  we  can  see 
them — but  I  shall  send  you  word.  Mean- 
time I  have  apprehensions  and  fears  in 
every  color  of  the  rainbow ! 

[27] 


LETTERS 
TO   MRS.   BIGELOW   LAWRENCE 

June  8,  1888. 

I  have  thought  of  you  a  great  deal  in 
these  blooming,  changing,  spring  days.  I 
have  been  in  the  city;  but  I  have  been 
aware  of  the  country,  and  that  is  the  point 
after  all.  The  leaves  have  come,  but  I 
think  nothing  says  that  the  summer  is  here 
so  plainly  as  the  first  shadow  that  the  fo- 
liage throws.  When  I  see  that  upon  the 
grass  I  know  how  the  year's  calendar 
stands.   .  .  . 

All  you  said  of  the  work  in  glass  was 
very  comforting ;  and  I  find  it  a  beautiful 
medium  for  the  expression  of  many  things. 
At  this  little  Chapel  of  St.  Andrew's  there 
is  a  chance  to  give  so  many  people  plea- 
sure; for  some  who  could  not  dream  of 
having  a  memorial  window  on  the  ordi- 
nary terms  can  arrange  with  me  for  having 

[28] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

it  come  as  part  of  the  decoration  (in  a 
way),  and  so  I  hope  it  will  make  some  of 
the  people  who  worship  there  a  little  hap- 
pier. 

January  20,  1889. 

To-night,  I  snatch  a  fearful  joy !  and  in- 
sist upon  a  word  with  you,  if  indeed  you 
will  vouchsafe  to  forgive  the  dulness  of 
my  message.  ...  I  might  make  this  dul- 
ness more  complete  by  giving  you  a  cata- 
logue of  the  things  I  have  not  done ;  for 
that  has  been  the  most  thrilling  part  of 
this  three  weeks'  chase,  with  work  accu- 
mulated and  crying  out  to  be  done:  with 
people  going  and  coming,  and  eating  and 
drinking,  with  the  tying  up  of  old  respon- 
sibilities, and  the  taking  on  of  new  ones. 
In  the  midst  of  this  clatter,  however,  one's 
self  goes  on  quietly  enough,  and  how  often 
I  wish  I  might  step  aside  into  the  serene 
and  blithe  air  of  Aldie,  and  there  with 
you  recall  glowing  realities.  .  .  .  Mean- 

[^9] 


LETTERS 

time  the  daily  life  runs  on,  on  the  surface ; 
men  and  books,  and  classes  and  com- 
mittees, poets  and  learned  ladies,  and  the 
exchange  of  mental  commodities.  Mr. 
Lowell  adorns  dinner  parties  very  agree- 
ably ;  and  Mr.  Brooks  seems  to  me  to  have 
deepened  and  broadened  if  that  were  pos- 
sible, this  year ;  with  now  and  then  a  note 
of  bitterness  in  his  cry. 

Those  who  have  lately  read  the  thou- 
sands of  pages  in  Robert  Elsmere  are  now 
reading  the  tens  of  thousands  of  Mr.  Bryce. 
Have  you  undertaken  it  yet,  or  those  of 
your  household?  A  wonderful  treatise  it 
is  indeed  —  the  whole  American  organ- 
ism justly  and  sympathetically  stated  —  in 
short,  a  Master's  work. 

In  the  train,  February,  1890. 

As  I  fly  along  I  think  of  you  and  venture 
to  send  you  this  little  sheet  of  crooked 
writing  which  marks  my  flight. 

[30] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

Such  a  landscape  of  rainbows  as  there  is 
to-day,  I  have  almost  never  beheld  — 
stretches  of  snowy  fields  with  little  winding 
rivers  black  with  slow  water,  the  tawny 
grasses  and  reddening  shrubs,  or  violet  dis- 
tances of  amazing  loveliness.  It  makes  me 
wonder  afresh  over  the  mystical  meanings, 
the  unravelled  secrets  of  what  we  call  color, 
and  I  long  to  understand  it  better  that  I 
may  use  it  more  nobly. 

February  2,  1890. 

I  want  very  much  to  see  you  —  so  much 
life  goes  on  within  as  well  as  without, 
and  one  longs  to  compare  thought  and 
feeling  at  every  turn  of  the  strange  tide. 
I  have  been  at  work  too,  endeavoring 
to  make  up  for  lost  time.  .  .  .  But  one 
works  in  the  midst  of  a  shower  of  flying 
projectiles,  levelled  at  one's  unhappy  head 
by  Society  on  one  hand,  and  Culture  on 
the  other,  till  one  feels  as  if  one  would 

[31  ] 


LETTERS 

rather  go  solitary  and  ignorant  all  one's 
days. 

The  Browning  Memorial  was,  alas,  dry 
and  pallid,  owing  to  various  influences,  some 
of  omission,  and  some  of  commission ; 
needing  that  fusion  of  audience  and  speakers 
which  is  essential  to  the  true  success.  Yet 
the  songs  were  lovely  and  a  little  poesie  of 
Gilder's  gave  sanctity  to  the  moment  if  all 
else  failed.  .  .  .  There  was,  I  thought, 
quite  a  deep  and  true  word  said  of  Brown- 
ing in  Miss  Repplier's  English  Love  Songs 
which  I  do  not  doubt  you  have  seen,  and 
which  I  think  a  very  distinguished  critical 
essay  —  far  the  best,  to  my  mind,  which 
she  has  written.  And  oh,  have  you  seen 
Tennyson's  last  volume,  so  full  of  melody 
and  a  certain  austere  tenderness  of  feeling. 
It  moves  one  deeply  to  think  of  him  and 
Browning  standing  on  the  threshold  of 
the  next  life,  and  looking  forth  with  such 
a  serene  and  majestic  mien. 
[3^3 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

After  all  I  am  prepared  to  think  that  the 
level  of  spiritual  things,  in  the  19th  cen- 
tury, is  by  no  means  a  low  one,  for  the 
poets  speak  for  the  multitude,  which  loves 
God  better  than  it  knows. 

Of  the  illness  of  one  dear  to  her. 

May  20,  1890. 

So  the  days  go  on  with  hope  and  fear, 
but  with  hope  still  ahead :  and  acting,  I 
must  believe,  as  a  panoply  of  defence. 

The  daily  living  with  this  undercurrent 
of  illness,  seems  like  a  show  and  pretence. 
Yet  one  keeps  about  and  does  what  work 
there  is  to  do,  and  sees  the  spring  coming 
visibly  up  the  land  with  her  silent,  flowery 
feet. 

May  24,  1890. 

The  end    draws  near  for  our  beloved 
child.   She  is  in  perfect  peace,  beautiful  and 
happy,  and  so  all  must  be  well  with  us  as  it 
133} 


LETTERS 

is  with  her.   But  hearts  cry  out.  ...  I  have 
not  seen  her. 

May  24,  1890. 
Chief  in  the  many-colored  coat  of  pain, 

Wherewith  the  strenuous  soul  is  tightly  clad, 
There  is  above  all  hues  one  scarlet  stain. 

Most  saddest  in  the  tone  where  all  are  sad. 
Not  when  a  comrade  fights  in  other's  stead, 

Blue  glittering  decked  to  meet  the  encroach- 
ing spear. 
Nor  fronts  hot  yellow  flame  without  a  fear : 
Nor  when  in  purple  shadows  he  lies  dead. 
These  heights  his  eager  blood  mounts  to  achieve : 

These  deaths  the  burning  lover  leaps  to  die : 
Thus  may  he  with  one  blow  hard  fate  retrieve  : 

Thus  shall  he  set  Love's  chalice  in  the  sky. 
But  would  he  to  the  Heart  of  Grief  attain. 
Let  him  walk  outcast  from  another's  pain. 

June  6,  1890. 

Somehow  it  has  not  been  the  time  for 
writing  since  we  parted:  yet  our  hearts 
[34] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

have  not  failed  to  speak  with  each  other 
across  the  distance. 

It  has  been  a  time  for  recovery  and  sweet 
gathering  up  the  threads  of  memory.  Of 
feeling  less  perhaps  the  sword  of  separation, 
and  more  the  renewal  of  companionship 
in  an  altered,  but  none  the  less  real,  form. 
Gemma's  friends  have  come  much  to  me 
and  have  been  so  sweet  —  so  full  of  all  she 
was  in  their  lives  and  hopes.  Two  morn- 
ings as  I  have  been  at  work  Mr.  Brooks  has 
appeared,  and  brought  that  rush  of  min- 
gled things  which  one  comes  to  associate 
with  him.    Do  you  know  that  he  went 

from 's  funeral  to  the  wedding?  It  is 

fine  to  be  able  to  do  that  in  just  the  per- 
fect way.  ...  I  wish  I  could  go  into  a 
place  of  solitude  for  a  time  —  it  would 
seem  easier  than  routine  life.  But  it  is  a 
comfort  to  have  this  one  month. 


[35] 


LETTERS 

June  23,  1890. 

I  moved  to  Old  Place  ten  days  ago  ;  and 
for  a  week  I  have  been  absolutely  alone  — 
and  it  has  been  a  wonderful  time  to  me: 
so  full  of  voices ;  so  far  from  the  ordinary 
come  and  go  of  the  outer  world.  ...  It 
is  strange  that  at  a  time  like  this  the  sky 
and  the  sea  seem  strange,  and  out  of  tune 
with  what  one  is  feeling.  I  have  not  wanted 
to  paint  out  of  doors  —  could  not  feel  the 
impulse  —  but  I  shall  not  forget  what  it 
has  been  to  think  and  think,  to  dream  and 
dream.  .  .   . 

July  14,  1890. 

Those  days  of  solitude  of  which  I  wrote 
you  were  of  great  help  to  me  ;  so  I  think 
my  head  is  above  water  again,  while  every 
great  thing  seems  to  me  to  have  become 
more  great,  every  real  thing  more  real  in 
these  strange  deep  months  that  have  past. 
The  young  people  who  have  been  with  me 

[36] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

before  with  Gemma  about  the  4th,  asked 
if  they  might  come  this  year  all  the  more: 
and  I  had  them  here  and  was  very  glad  that 
I  did;  for  we  all  felt  how  sweet  it  was  to 
keep  the  strands  of  intercourse  unbroken, 
whether  on  earth  or  in  heaven.  And  for 
me  these  days  of  quiet  must  end  before  so 
very  long  I  fear,  and  I  must  get  me  back 
into  the  arena,  but  in  the  stillness  I  think 
I  have  learned  something. 

August  2,  1890. 

There  are  indeed  ideal  heights  on  which 
it  is  possible  to  live,  even  in  this  life  ;  but 
to  find  the  "  equal  yearning  towards  God'* 
in  kindred  souls,  —  this  is  the  rarest  as  it 
is  the  choicest  possession.  Of  this,  and  of 
much  that  this  recalls,  I  have  long  words 
to  say,  for  revelation  comes  not  only  in 
study  of  Dante,  but  in  experience  of  life 
in  one's  self  and  in  others :  and  one  is 
amazed   at  the  depth  of  variety  of  even 

[37] 


LETTERS 

ordinary  living  —  at  the  change  and  flux 
in  human  character  —  at  the  "  exultations 
and  agonies "  over  which  Wordsworth 
dreams. 

Easter  Day,  returning  from  Bermuda,  1892. 

I  am  returning  from  the  enchanted 
island,  .  .  .  and  O,  what  an  island  it  is !  No 
one  can  say  too  much  of  the  color  and 
fragrance  of  it,  —  the  sea,  which  is  mixed 
of  violet  and  turquoise,  the  sky,  radiant 
with  trailing  clouds,  everywhere  beauty, 
and  with  it  all  a  sort  of  strange  romance, — 
set  in  such  loneliness,  yet  smiling  and  rosy 
as  the  dawn.  It  made  me  feel  things  that 
cannot  be  expressed  in  words. 

May  26,  1892.   Bolton. 

This  is 's  day  —  not  of  Death  but 

of  Resurrection.  .  .  .  The  country  is  sweet 
with  perfume  and  garlanded  with  orchards 
of  blossoms.  I  have  never  seen  anything 

[38] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

like  it  and  the  time  is  a  time  of  peace.  If 
only  you  knew  how  often  I  put  my  hand 
silently  into  yours,  in  all  the  busy  days  when 
I  do  not  because  I  cannot  write.  .  .  .  There 
are  days  when  the  casual  and  the  incidental 
has  its  turn ;  when  I  am  holding  stirrup 
cups  for  travellers,  and  attending  to  their 
last  jobs ;  when  I  am  getting  out  of  Winter 
into  Summer  and  wondering  if  the  "  sea- 
sons '*  were  worthy  of  Mr.  Thomson's  no- 
tice !  Wherefore  letters  are  full  of  the  dul- 
ness  of  my  dulness,  and  I  am  loath  to  send 
one  to  you.  .  .  .  Apropos  of  letters  I  must 
put  within  this  two  or  three  bits  from  a  re- 
cent publication  of  the  Emerson-Thoreau 
Correspondence.  There  is  something  so 
rare  in  the  white  fire  of  Transcendentalism 
— star-stuff  it  is,  and  cannot  die.  In  fact,  of 
late  there  have  been  many  crumbs  of  liter- 
ary interest,  and  I  am  wondering  whether 
I  shall  not  now  and  then  make  up  a  little 
budget  and  send  across  to  you  ? 

[39] 


LETTERS 

March  12,  1896. 

The  little  memorial  to  Mr.  Brooks, 
which  my  Bible  Class  has  long  dreamed 
of,  is  now  finished  and  waiting  to  be  put 
up  at  Easter.  Some  day  I  will  show  you 
this,  and  meantime  send  a  little  rough 
sketch. 

The  three  windows  are  in  the  Parish 
Room  where  the  Class  meets,  and  as  it 
is  also  used  for  many  practical  purposes, 
the  windows  (three  giving  on  the  cloister 
to  the  south)  are  kept  in  clear  glass  with 
jewelled  flowers  at  the  intersecting  of  the 
little  frames  .  .  .  and  then  the  middle 
one  with  a  single  device.  In  the  glass  of 
course  there  is  a  depth  and  richness  that 
this  paper  sketch  little  conveys. 

And  O,  along  with  all  these  doings  runs 
the  great  current  of  the  inner  life,  as  now 
lived.  It  is  wonderful  to  know  how  one 
can  suffer  and  yet  not  be  destroyed.  I  can- 
not begin  to  understand  the  dreams  and 

[40] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

the  intimations  of  this  new  life,  but  it  re- 
minds one  of  those  great  words 

"If  my  bark  sinks,  't  is  to  another  sea.** 

I  think  it  is  a  deeper  sea  which  the  soul 
is  now  called  upon  to  sail. 

April  15,  1896.   At  Sea. 

One  word  .  .  .  across  the  stretch  of 
waters,  where  all  has  gone  with  rather 
more  than  usual  facility,  less  of  the  perni- 
cious turmoil  within,  and  a  freer  exercise 
of  the  human  faculties  ! 

And  ah!  what  stretches  of  time  in 
which  to  hope  and  to  dream,  and  to  feel 
afresh  how  near  is  beauty  to  the  longing 
sight.   .   .   . 

Have  you  seen  a  little  book  Le  Tresor 
des  Humbles?  A  little  simple  and  mysti- 
cal series  of  chapters  which  speak  gently 
of  some  things  which  we  feel  more  and 
more  to  be  true. 

[41] 


'     LETTERS 

^  January  i6,  1899. 

I  am  living  at  the  bottom  of  the  sea  in 
these  days,  watching  the  course  of  things 
and  **  dreaming  of  things  to  come/*  at  the 
same  time  that  I  am  supposed  to  be  in  evi- 
dence in  the  work  shop,  and  in  the  haunts 
of  men.  A  strange  chequer  of  colours  is 
this  daily  life, —  so  sad,  so  glad. 

Whit  Sunday,  1899. 

Those  two  happy  days  at  Aldie  were 
like  being  in  some  island  of  the  blest  and 
have  left  behind  them  a  sort  of  perfume, 
just  as  did  those  wonderful  hours  at  Bay- 
reuth,  when  you  made  me  one  of  the  gifts 
of  my  life.   .   .   . 

This  is  the  day  of  the  Feast  of  the 
Spirit,  and  above  the  pain  and  jar  of  the 
fretful  or  discordant  world  which  we  see, 
one  is  aware  of  an  unseen,  persistent  har- 
mony which  in  time  shall  draw  all  things 
into  itself.  When  one  has  come  to  a  time 

[42] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

in  which  truth  has  made  many  free; 
when  the  revelation  is  not  in  books  but  in 
men,  and  the  greater  Bible  being  written 
every  day.  When  we  feel  all  these  things 
to  be  true,  we  "  know  that  our  redemp- 
tion draweth  nigh/' 


[43] 


LETTERS 


TO  DR.  RICHARD  C.  CABOT 

August  15,  1859. 

My  Richard,  —  I  have  wanted  to  write 
to  you  ever  since  you  went  away ;  but  much 
work  and  a  period  of  ironical  illness  (owing 
to  trouble  with  my  eyes)  have  made  day 
and  night  not  long  enough  for  the  joys 
of  letter-writing.  To-day  I  have  just  de- 
spatched your  things.  ...  I  seemed  to  know 
before  your  letter  came  just  how  you  had 
felt  while  you  were  at  Old  Place.  It  was,  I 
saw  afterward,  asking  you  to  do  a  difficult 
thing  to  come  into  an  air  full  of  that  easy 
intimacy  which  young  people  together 
soon  acquire,  and  which  is  not  only  in- 
clusive of  themselves,  but  a  little  exclu- 
sive of  others  !  Still  the  real  difficulty  lay 
deeper,  and  was  I  think  in  you,  a  lack, 
not  of  sympathy,  but  of  the  art  of  ex- 
pressing it  so  simply  and  so  spontaneously 

[44] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

that  a  fine  rapport  is  sure  to  follow.  I 
should  not  speak  of  this  now,  nor  venture 
to  generalize  from  a  single  instance,  if  it 
were  not  for  having  wanted  to  say  some- 
thing of  this  sort  to  you  in  regard  to  the 
"  Love  and  Christianity/'  I  felt  so  at  one 
with  your  point  of  view  in  that,  dear,  that 
I  wanted  to  remind  you  of  what  I  believe 
to  be  an  integral  part  of  one's  matter,  one's 
philosophy :  and  that  is  the  manner  of  its 
application.  As  I  say  this,  it  seems  like  a 
contradiction  in  terms ;  and  yet,  as  not  the 
thought,  but  the  life,  constitutes  the  realm 
of  human  activity,  and  as  that  life  consists 
of  finely  tempered  impulses  expressed  in 
finely  tempered  acts,  so  I  think  we  may 
justly  demand  that  the  context  of  the  spirit- 
ual code  should  cover  behavior  as  well  as 
belief.  Now  in  your  essay  the  clues  to  be- 
havior seemed  to  me  inadequate  or  partial. 
You,  as  you,  were  too  concentrated  and 
personal  in  dealing  with  others.  Behavior 
[45] 


LETTERS 

based  on  this  model  has  too  much  analysis 
and  too  little  laissez  faire . 

You  do  not  speak  of  the  requisite  time 
and  space  essential  to  the  problem ;  you 
do  not  sufRciently  indicate  how  in  hu- 
man relationships  (as  well  as  in  individual 
living)  seeds  are  to  become  flowers.  You 
are,  perhaps,  dwelling  more  upon  self-con- 
quest than  upon  self-surrender ;  yet  this 
last  holds  the  divinest  glory  of  heroes. 
Something  of  this  I  understand  to  be  the 
secret  of  that  losing  of  one's  soul  that 
Christ  taught,  —  a  loss  of  one's  self  in 
others,  —  asking  for  no  advantage,  making 
no  terms. 

All  this  I  know  to  have  been  in  your 
thought,  but  I  find  it  not  sufficiently  in- 
sisted on  as  an  essential  element.  Does  it 
seem  so  to  you  ?  or  have  I  not  wholly  un- 
derstood your  meaning  ?  You  will  tell  me. 


[46] 


OF   MRS.  WHITMAN 

September  i,  1889. 

I  knew  you  would  understand  the  tem- 
per of  my  letter,  dearest  boy,  and  I  under- 
stood yours;  and  this  I  think  will  always 
be  true,  —  so  we  can  go  freely  on  and 
speak  simply  and  without  preamble  or  in- 
troduction, —  as  friends. 

To  begin,  then,  with  your  first  ques- 
tion, —  as  to  your  want  of  rapport  with 
any  company  of  people  whom  you  con- 
ceive to  be,  as  you  say,  "fine  persons,''  but 
who  do  not  seem  to  you  to  be  serving  the 
ideal.  I  make  my  first  complaint  here : 
your  attitude  is  one  of  criticism  and  analy- 
sis, instead  of  receptivity  and  hospitality. 
You  do  in  fact  not  really  believe  that  they 
are  fine  persons,  for  the  only  thing  that 
could  make  them  so  would  be  that  they 
were  serving  the  ideal,  and  this  you  doubt ; 
so  you  hope  perhaps  that  they  are  noble, 
but  you  do  not  believe  them  to  be.  The 
result  is  that  you  are  not  giving  them  quite 

[47] 


LETTERS 

a  fair  chance.  You  are  demanding  that 
they  should  begin  by  proving  their  aim  to 
you.  Prove  yours  to  them,  rather,  —  that 
is  your  opportunity,  —  and  in  so  doing 
invite  their  souls  into  chambers  of  wel- 
come support  and  mutual  confidence. 
Dear  Richard,  I  am  sure  that  this  is  the 
crux  of  the  situation :  judgment  before 
the  evidence  is  in.  Indeed  I  think  that 
this  brings  me  to  the  "time  and  space" 
which  you  thought  not  intelligible.  I 
meant  that  in  the  intercourse  of  spirits 
there  must  be  much  leeway,  —  allow- 
ance of  time,  room  to  move  about  in,  — 
because  the  modes  of  spiritual  manifesta- 
tion are  so  many  and  so  varied  that  we 
must  take  much  for  granted  at  first,  and 
afterwards  sift,  weigh,  balance,  —  con- 
demn it,  maybe. 

I  put  aside   what  said.    I   don't 

think  that  was  the  actuating  principle  for 
a  moment.  Of  course  that  was  poor  and 

[48] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

false  (and  it  came  out  of  a  phase  through 

which   I  think  is  passing  now,  and 

where  she  needs  help),  but  it  was  not  in 
the  hearts  of  that  little  group  as  I  saw 
them,  in  whom  I  took  note  of  some  sweet 
things  as  they  went  along. 

But  I  am  not  now  thinking  of  those 
boys  and  girls  as  such,  only  as  representa- 
tions of  many  other  companies  where 
what  you  think  and  believe  would  bring 
help  and  find  sympathy :  if  you  will  but 
set  yourself  to  this  fine  art  of  giving. 
When  I  said  you  were  too  concentrated, 
I  meant  too  concentrated  on  life  as  you 
conceived  it,  without  reference  to  how  it 
might  be  conceived  (and  still  nobly)  by 
others.  For  I  must  believe  that  he  who 
will  most  help  the  Society  of  which  he 
forms  a  part,  must  be  able  to  perceive  and 
to  make  evident  the  central  harmony :  to 
cry  out  of  the  best  in  him  to  the  best  in 
others,  in  a  voice  that  shall  quicken  and 
[49] 


LETTERS 

enhance  the  whole  mass  of  that  **  yearning 
upward ''  that  deifies  our  clay. 

Yours,  dear,  in  love, 

S.  W. 

October  17,  1889. 

Your  letter  was  very  dear  to  me,  my 
Richard :  and  you  will  know  without 
words  of  mine  how  truly  I  felt  with  you 
in  the  pain  and  joy  through  which  you 
have  gone,  in  that  swift  passing  from  this 
world  of  your  friend.  In  some  strange 
inexplicable  way  Death  bears  such  wit- 
ness to  itself:  and  so  I  say  joy,  too:  be- 
cause one  is  aware  of  something  new  and 
beautiful  and  reassuring,  I  think,  when 
one  bears  another  company  through  that 
gate.   .   .  . 

After  marking  what  you  said  some  time 
ago  about  your  profession,  I  felt  content 
and  ready  to  believe  you  were  moving  as 
your  star  led.  To  all  of  what  you  said  about 

C  50] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

it  I  agreed :  and  I  saw  beside  what  great 
opportunity  it  gives  for  the  training  of  all 
one's  powers,  at  the  same  time  that  it  opens 
the  door  of  service  and  self-forgetful  know- 
ledge of  others.  This  year  of  study  will 
crystallize  many  points  for  you,  I  do  not 
doubt ;  will  direct  your  tendency,  and  de- 
cide which  way  out  of  the  many  roads  in 
medicine  you  will  walk. 

One  thing  I  feel  pretty  sure  of,  and  that 
is  that  you  can  justly  enter  upon  a  very 
ample  field  of  study  and  enrichment,  can 
drink  at  more  than  one  fountain,  because 
you  have  diverse  capacities  and  the  power 
of  concentration.  These  two  possessions 
make  one  feel  that  not  only  your  safety 
but  your  best  success  will  lie  in  a  large 
and  inclusive,  as  well  as  strenuous,  plan  of 
life,  a  movement  onward,  broad  as  well  as 
high. 

Somehow  we  seem  to  need  rich  virtue : 
static  as  well  as  dynamic  force,  in  these 
[si] 


LETTERS 

days  of  unregulated,  or  ill-regulated,  en- 
ergy :  and  I  long  to  have  you  fulfil,  as  far 
as  may  be,  whatever  good  gifts  God  has 
given  you:  striking  a  generous  chord  on 
your  young  harp. 

Now  just  one  more  word  on  our  old 
theme  in  answer  to  your  last  letter,  where- 
in you  say  that  until  one  is  sure  that  at  a 
given  time  persons  are  serving  their  ideal, 
we  cannot  join  forces  with  them,  and  so 
on.  Dear  boy,  you  will  think  me  only  hard- 
hearted, but  it  is  just  here  that  I  find  your 
attitude  wrong :  not  in  the  want  of  sym- 
pathetic insight,  which  may  come  from 
inherited  tendencies,  or  youth,  or  mascu- 
linity, but  in  something  deeper  still,  which 
is  sympathy  itself.  For  what  is  the  true 
attitude  toward  any  person,  or  company  of 
persons  ?  Not  that  of  a  critic  nor  a  judge, 
nor  even  a  spectator,  but  a  friend.  And 
his  first  duty,  his  first  privilege  (so  it  seems 
to  me),  is  to  make  his  love  for  them  felt  by 

[52] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

the  exercise  of  generosity  and  faith.  Criti- 
cism there  may  be,  but  the  estabUshment 
of  a  relationship  comes  before,  may  pre- 
clude criticism,  turning  the  water  into 
wine.   ... 

I  do  not  here  undertake  to  say  how  this 
great  thing  is  to  be  done,  but  that  it  must 
be  done  is  to  me  a  leading  principle :  the 
method  of  Jesus  and  of  Paul,  of  all  brothers 
and  saviours  the  world  over. 

Yours  in  love, 

S.  W. 

October  27,  1889. 

Dearest  R.  —  Your  last  letter  not  only 
narrows  our  discussions  to  those  two  ques- 
tions, but  it  shows  me  that  I  had  been 
talking  on  a  basis  which  I  had  not  at- 
tempted to  establish,  but  had  merely  taken 
for  granted.  I  do  distinctly  think  that 
one's  attitude  in  personal  relations  is  differ- 


LETTERS 

ent  from  one's  attitude  toward  a  book  or  a 
picture,  or  when  listening  to  talk,  as  such ; 
and  for  this  reason  :  that  these  latter 
things  are,  as  far  as  they  go,  results;  they 
stand  on  their  merits,  and  are  here  for  cri- 
ticism, approval,  or  blame,  what  you  like. 
But  with  people  this  is  not  so,  —  the  best 
of  them  do  not  stand  on  their  merits,  and 
surely  the  worst  cannot:  they  are,  essen- 
tially as  well  as  potentially,  what  they  may 
become,  —  and  one's  attitude  must  not  be 
one  of  judgment  reserved,  but  of  hope  and 
confidence  expressed :  an  immediate  appeal 
to  that  better  self  which  is  somewhere  in 
each  one,  and  which  it  is  the  first  privilege 
of  intercourse  to  invoke.  Don't  you  see 
that  if  you  came  into  a  company  of  saints 
your  attitude  would  really  be  the  same  as 
when  you  come  into  a  company  of  sinners? 
You  would  want  them  to  feel  that  your 
heart  felt  with  their  heart,  through  the 
heights  of  achievement  on  one  side,  or 
[54] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

through  the  abysses  of  failure  on  the  other, 
it  might  be :  but  there  would  be  a  point  of 
meeting,  of  love  — and  here  lies  the  radical 
difference  between  sympathy  and  sympa- 
thetic insight,  it  seems  to  me :  that  the  latter 
perceives  or  understands,  while  the  former 
inspires  and  creates. 

For  of  all  the  jewels  of  intercourse  no- 
thing is  so  great  as  this  :  that  the  touch  of 
soul  on  soul  may  make  a  new  product  — 
"  music  as  before,  but  vaster.''  You  will 
see  many  difficulties  in  the  working  out  of 
this,  and  I  shall  be  ready  enough  to  admit 
them,  but  the  difficulties  don't  count  when 
we  are  in  search  of  the  bottom  principle : 
and  to  me  this  is  a  bottom  principle.  I 
think,  too,  that  it  is  a  principle  which 
counts  at  every  level:  one  must  act  on 
generous  presumptions  ;  one  must  impute 
virtue ;  one  must  invest  the  world  with  its 
own  divinity,  if  one  is  going  to  serve  the 
world  and  lift  it  higher. 
[55] 


LETTERS 

Dear  friend,  do    I   make  this  clearer? 
and  does  it  seem  to  you  true  ? 
My  love  always. 

Autumn,  1889. 

My  Beloved  Richard, — Your  letter 
gave  me  a  moment  of  pure  joy. 

I  knew  we  were  at  one  all  the  way 
along:  and  yet  perhaps  it  was  the  very 
certainty  of  that  knowledge  which  made 
me  fail  to  understand  what  were  the 
grounds  of  our  superficial  differences. 

Ah,  well,  it  makes  me  feel  very  rich  to 
have  you  near,  to  count  our  mutual  sym- 
pathy, and  to  see  you  stretch  your  new 
strength  to  the  old  endeavor. 

God  bless  you,  dearest  boy,         S.  W. 

November  13,  1893. 

Your  letter  was  beautiful  to  get,  dearest 
Richard,  and  brought  me  close  to  your 
heart. 

[56] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

It  was  eleven  years  ago  that  I  put  in 
my  portfolio,  and  have  kept  in  there  near 
my  hand  ever  since,  two  or  three  pages 
of  one  of  Edward's  themes,  in  which  I 
felt  that  grasp  of  the  nature  of  things  and 
knew  that  here  came  one  whose  eye  was 
on  the  sun.  That  deep  note  of  maturity, 
the  recognition  of  the  true  relations  in 
life,  in  art, —  in  all  things,  —  this  he 
showed  so  early:  and  in  these  years  of 
heroism  among  the  fires  of  experience,  I 
know  what  spiritual  insight  must  have 
come  to  him.  And  now  that  he  "beacons 
from  where  the  immortals  are''  it  stirs 
the  soul  afresh  and  blows  upon  the  embers 
of  the  heart,  and  incites,  not  to  tears,  but 
to  joyful  high  endeavor.   .   .   . 

And  meanwhile  we  will  thank  God  and 
take  courage. 

Yours, 

S.  W. 

[57] 


LETTERS 

June  27,  1897. 

Dearest  Richard,  did  you  happen  to  see 
in  a  college  magazine  a  brief  article  on 
Originality  and  Consciousness,  by  Royce  ? 
It  interested  me,  and  the  enclosed  is  in 
answer  to  a  letter  I  sent  him,  asking  if 
he  would  come  some  day  and,  so  to  speak, 
continue  the  conversation.  I  send  it  to 
you  because,  on  that  evening  we  spent 
together,  you  spoke  of  what  came  with 
death  or  through  it,  and  I  know  that  you 
must  be  thinking,  as  I  so  often  am,  of  the 
next  life,  as  well  as  that  which  now  is.  I 
agreed  with  you  in  denying  the  miracle 
of  death,  as  you  called  it:  yet  you  will 
agree  with  me  I  fancy  in  feeling  that  a 
momentous  change  of  conditions  may  have 
something  in  it  like  birth,  which  is  of  the 
nature  of  miracle. 

But  what  enlarged  consciousness,  what 
continuity  of  relationship,  what  imma- 
nence  of  the  spirit — what  of  all  these 

[58] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

attributes  there  may  be  sign  or  token  — 
this  is  the  old  amazing  doubting,  believing 
question. 

Faith  is  the  will  made  perfect,  Novalis 
said,  and  that  is  a  deep  saying,  and  has 
stood  by  me  many  a  day.  I  send  my  love 
to  you  and  my  dear  Ella,  not  knowing 
whether  you  are  in  the  valley  or  on  the 
hill-top,  but  wishing  you  the  same  wish 
everywhere. 

This  letter  only  reached  Dr.  Cabot  after  Mrs.  Whitman's  death. 
S.  S.  Saxonia,   March  24,  1902. 

I  have  to  quote  St.  Paul  against  your 
word,  my  beloved  Richard:  for  "owe  no 
man  anything  but  to  love  one  another" 
is  the  great  solvent,  and  if  at  times  love 
casts  some  light  upon  the  path,  or  succours 
for  a  moment  the  eager  heart,  it  is  with 
hearts  that  the  account  is  kept,  and  the 
profits  are  the  possession  of  a  mutual  joy. 
But  your  letter  gave  me  some  happy  tears: 
[59] 


LETTERS 

for  ever  since  that  day  when  you  came  to 
Mrs.  Parkman's  in  your  little  brown  rain- 
coat, all  full  of  music  and  of  resolution,  I 
have  loved  you,  and  felt  the  pressure  of 
your  life  in  mine:  feeling  also  the  pro- 
cesses, stern  but  beautiful,  which  went  to 
"fitly  frame  together"  your  whole  self  into 
the  live  temple.  Just  when  you  became 
a  source  of  strength  and  consolation  (as 
she  has  so  often  told  me)  to  your  beloved 
mother,  and  later  to  me,  I  do  not  know: 
but  in  the  strenuous  life  all  must  live; 
your  love  and  sympathy,  your  recognition 
of  the  dream,  your  central  fire,  all  this  has 
been  a  gift  which  has  warmed  and  fed  my 
life,  and  which  is  a  part,  I  feel  sure,  of 
my  life  everlasting. 

So  in  memory  and  in  hope,  my  Richard, 
I  am  ever  yours 

S.  W. 


[60] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

TO   MISS   SARAH    ORNE  JEWETT 
1882-1903 

In  that  strange,  native  place  towards 
which  we  walk,  there  will  be  told  what 
cannot  be  said  here,  there  will  be  made 
known  the  comfort  and  refreshment  which 
lay  in  tender  acts  and  in  the  golden  healing 
touch  of  remembrance,  and  if  I  may  dare 
say  it,  of  faith. 

April  3,  1882. 

Is  it  really  a  year  of  special  change  and 
flux?  or  is  it  only  that  one  has  grown  old 
enough  to  see  what  moving  waters  run 
below  this  crust  of  continuance  ?  I  am  not 
sure,  but  I  think  it  is  this  last. 

July  10  (1884?). 

I  think  that  I  have  never  yet  spoken 
of  the  Country  Doctor  to  you,  dear  friend, 

[61  ] 


LETTERS 

though  I  declare  to  you  that  this  is  the 
third  beginning  I  have  made.  .  .  .  There 
have  been  many  practical  reasons  for  delay, 
but  perhaps  an  unpractical  one  weighed 
heaviest  in  the  scale;  the  fact  that  I 
wanted  to  say  so  much,  apropos  to  the 
Country  Doctor^  that  no  little  scrap  of 
statement  would  serve  me  !  I  think  it  de- 
lightful :  written  with  that  combination 
of  pure  literary  style  and  aromatic  indi- 
vidual flavor  that  gives  one  such  especial 
pleasure,  and  the  people  live  and  breathe 
for  me  and  take  their  place  in  the  New 
England  landscape.  Then  comes  the  moral 
of  the  situation,  and  that  *s  what  I  want  to 
know  more  about.  Is  it  that  Nan  really 
loves  her  lover?  or  does  she  only  feel  the 
possibility  and  decide  to  reject  it  ? 

Yet,  after  all,  as  I  ask  these  questions  I 
see  what  a  foolish  person  I  am  ;  for  if  one 
begins  to  discuss  this  strange  re-iterated 
problem,  one  must  go  into  the  depths  of 

[62] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

it  and  only  come  forth  with  the  pearl  of 
Truth  which  is  hard  to  find. 

I  suppose  I  think,  in  some  crude,  un- 
formulated way,  that  if  two  souls  really  have 
found  each  other,  in  the  Divine  Economy 
(by  some  highest  Mathematics)  they  will 
count  for  more  together  than  they  ever 
could  apart ;  and  that  whatever  loss  is  en- 
tailed in  this  fusion  of  interests,  is  more 
than  made  good  by  a  new  and  more  com- 
plete existence.  But  I  will  not  bore  you 
with  all  this,  when  I  may  be  speaking 
quite  wide  the  mark  of  your  opinion.  .  .  . 

I  want  to  tell  you  that  I  have  had  four 
days  of  sketching  at  Gloucester,  and  among 
dreams  and  visions,  which  has  given  me 
no  mean  lift,  and  provided  much  consola- 
tion. There  is  not  much  to  show  for  it,  you 
might  say :  but  I  got  something  neverthe- 
less. 

Dear  friend,  this  is  a  most  garrulous  let- 
ter, but  sometimes  there's  no  fun  in  brevity. 

[63] 


LETTERS 

March  5,  1887. 

I  have  not  said  to  you  how  very  sweet, 
how  comforting  and  sustaining  I  found  the 
letter  which  came  to  me  from  your  hand, 
nor  have  I  said  that  I  let  it  count  in  my 
hurrying  days  ;  and  did  distinctly  leave 
undone  some  things  which  pressed  with 
the  familiar  pressure,  but  which,  in  a  larger 
vision,  were  not  essential.  I  live  so  much 
under  the  water  as  it  were,  that  I  am  in 
danger,  I  know,  of  mis-calculating  weights 
and  measures  ;  and  the  touch  of  a  friend's 
hand  is  a  beautiful  reminder  of  first  values. 
.  .  .  Do  you  know  the  line  from  Epicte- 
tus  ?  "  Rather  than  bread  let  understanding 
concerning  God  be  renewed  to  you  day  by 
day." 

Palm  Sunday,  1888. 

The  tender  majesty  of  this  high  day  is 
with  me  still,  dear  friend  (though  the  hour 
has  slipped  past  which  sets  its  limit  in 
time),  and  I  love  to  write  to  you  in  the 

[64] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

shadow  of  its  associations.  Mr.  Brooks 
preached  quite  a  wonderful  sermon  this 
morning ;  taking  man  as  his  own  Jerusa- 
lem, receiving  everything  as  coming  from 
God,  and  greeting  it  with  Hosanna.  A 
"hard  doctrine;"  but  hard  as  everything 
worth  having  is  hard,  either  in  getting  or 
holding  or  loving. 

June  i6  (1889?). 

Just  when  I  was  in  a  curious  trough  of 
the  sea,  and  when  its  bottom  seemed  so 
much  nearer  than  the  top,  came  that  dear 
letter  with  love  and  faith  in  it  —  not  war- 
ranted, but  maybe  all  the  more  sustaining, 
and  comforted  my  soul.  I  have  done  more 
work  this  winter  and  at  greater  odds  than 
usual,  and  that's  all  right:  only  there 
comes  a  moment  when  — ah  well,  why  do 
I  use  so  many  words  ?  .  .  . 


[65] 


LETTERS 

July,  1889. 

The  summer  so  far  has  been  a  matter 
of  jobbing,  and  I  have  only  guessed  at  the 
way  the  sky  and  the  trees  look.  Presently 
I  think  I  am  to  have  a  little  time  to  my- 
self; and  if  this  is  bestowed  I  shall  retire 
into  Nature  and  work  as  she  dictates.  You 
will  be  glad  of  this  ?  And  some  day  we 
shall  meet  again.  I  hope  to  speak  of  many 
things  which  have  been  a-laying  in  lavender 
for  a  long  while,  dear  fellow  pilgrim.  Just 

now  I  am  greatly  involved  with  's 

wedding,  and  the  young  people  who  have 
gathered  here  for  that  event.  One  is  full 
of  joy  and  pain  at  beholding  their  youth 
and  their  ignorance. 

February,  1890. 

Things  are  many  and  pretty  dull,  albeit 

they  include  much  work  and  a  little  play; 

refusing  to  see  folks  at  the  studio  door  of 

mornings  and  bowing  and  bending  at  them 

[66] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

of  evenings  (but  most  times  declining  to 
go  where  bowing  and  bending  is  in  order). 

has  been  making  aphorisms  of  late, 

on  the  typewriter,  so  that  they  are  more 
than  usually  fundamental  in  their  effect ! 
and  is  dealing  damnation  out  against  what 
she  calls  the  "  deep  spiritual  sin  of  the 
mind-cure." 

May  26,  1890. 

She  fought  so  long,  my  little  Gemma, 
and  this  morning  she  went  forth  in  the  sun- 
rise. It  was  so  peaceful  and  beautiful  with 
her  that  one  can  only  feel  as  she  felt ;  but 
the  human  heart  cries  out  in  pain  and  must 
cry,  yet  knowing  that  God  is  greater  than 
our  hearts  and  will  console  and  bless. 

June  28,  1890. 

This  last  fortnight,  which  has  been  a 
time  of  almost  absolute  silence;  and  a 
period  of  great    peace    and    refreshment 

[67] 


LETTERS 

when  one  could  sit  still  and  listen  to  the 
voices,  I  have  worked  in  town  by  day  and 
gone  down  and  sat  by  the  shore  and  seen 
the  stars  shine ;  sometimes  even  the  dawn 
come  up,  and  have  found  it  very  good. 

July,  1890. 

Strangely  enough  that  impulse  for  out 
of  doors  work  has  not  yet  taken  me  in  its 
thrall.  By  this  time,  usually,  of  a  summer 
I  am  dying  to  be  out  in  it  and  at  it ;  but 
the  deep  solemn  inner  living  of  this  year 
has  kept  me  in  a  place  apart ;  and  I  am 
still  there,  though  the  routine  life  goes  on, 
and  I  apparently  with  it. 

August  14,  1890. 

This  Summer  seems  to  give  little  room 
for  what  one  needs  most.  By  this  I  do  not 
mean  to  blame  fate :  only  to  recognize 
some  of  the  conditions  which  attend  the 
ordinary  life  we  live,  and  which  at  a  time 
[68] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

of  special  stress  keep  one's  feet  in  the 
road,  while  one's  heart  is  in  the  sea  or 
the  sky. 

Perhaps  those  skyey  windows  will  re- 
port themselves  some  day  in  renewed 
working  impulses,  though  as  yet  I  can't 
count  them. 

January  6,  1891. 

A  message  of  the  New  Year  with  its 
trembling  hopes,  its  intimations,  its  retro- 
spect. The  year  always  comes  as  a  person 
to  me  ;  and  this  one  has  a  gentle  look  and 
perhaps  will  lay  a  soft  hand  on  us.  At  all 
events  one  can  live  and  love  in  it,  and  so 
one  turns  to  and  rallies  on  one's  abstract 
propositions. 

January  31,  1891. 

I  am  led  to  wonder  if  time  given  to  ac- 
quaintances and  enemies  is  really  worth  as 
much  towards  one's  everlasting  salvation 

[69] 


LETTERS 

as  if  friends  were  allowed  to  come  into 
the  scheme  of  organization  a  little  more 
freely. 

May  26,  1891. 

I  wish  I  had  a  pansy  to  put  here  in  mem- 
ory of  this  day,  —  my  little  Gemma's  ; 
forever  an  open  window  into  Heaven. 

July  8,  1 891. 

I  have  wanted  awfully  to  write  to  you, 
dear  My  Fellow  Traveller ;  yet  somehow 
at  bad  moments  could  n't,  and  at  good  ones 
fell  to  dreaming  instead.   .   .   . 

It 's  been  somehow  a  difficult  kind  of  a 
time,  with  one  shining  spot  for  which  to 
be  everlastingly  grateful,  thirty-six  hours 
at  Niagara !  E.  L.  asked  me  long  ago  to 
stay  with  her  there,  and  I  did  not  want  to 
miss  all  this  period  of  solemn  and  tender 
experience  with  her,  so  I  went  just  for 
this,  instead  of  the  fortnight. 

When  once  I  saw  that  supreme  sight 

[70] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

before  I  knew  it  was  an  altar  ;  and  all  I 
had  felt  came  home  to  me,  a  thousand 
fold :  and  I  shall  dream  forever  of  the  pic- 
ture which  must  be  painted  there.  Some- 
day we  will  speak  of  it,  and  of  the  rainbow 
which  came  and  "  stood  round  about  the 
throne." 

With  this  letter  was  the  following  sonnet. 
SURSUM    CORDA 

Behold  an  altar  radiantly  fair 
Lit  with  white  flames  drawn  from  the  heart  of 
things ! 

Here  pour  oblations  of  majestic  springs 
Fed  by  the  sky  in  some  wide  upland  air; 

Here  rises  incense  warm  with  scent  of  dawn. 
Gold  with  the  sunset,  purple  with  the  night, 

Here  shines  a  snowy  pavement  dazzling  bright 
For  saints  and  little  children  and  the  worn 

Footsteps  of  martyrs  who  have  gained  their 
palm. 
O  God  !  of  Thee  alone  this  splendor  tells.    . 

[71] 


LETTERS 

In  power,  in  continuity,  in  calm ; 
In  air  ineffable  where  color  dwells. 

Or  in  still  voices  where  are  borne  along 
Strains  of  an  incommunicable  song. 

Niagara,  July  2,  1891. 

October,  1891. 

I  have  come  here  from  Trinity  where 
the  Consecration  Service  made  a  great  and 
moving  and  upHfting  period ;  a  wonderful 
beauty  lay  in  it  all;  centering  in  Mr. 
Brooks  and  communicating  itself  to  all 
beholders. 

It  is  a  great  office  this  of  Bishop;  but 
its  greatness  only  really  becomes  apparent 
when  it  is  filled  by  a  great  man,  and  so 
there  comes  in  now  a  strange  new  recog- 
nition of  all  that  may  come  out  of  this  new 
splendor.  .  .  . 

I  have  not  seen  A.  F.  nor  indeed  any 
one,  since  my  three  days  in  Williamstown, 
the  most  charming  town  set  in  the  midst 

C  72  ] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

of  the  most  genial  and  beneficent  land- 
scape I  have  ever  seen  in  America. 

October,  1891. 

My  thoughts  and  love  have  been  yours, 
ever  since  I  saw  the  brief  word  which  told 
that  your  dear  Mother  had  been  taken 
into  heaven,  and  the  love  stays  with  you 
now  saying  no  word  because  no  word  is 
deep,  or  sweet,  or  rich  enough  .  .  .  but 
I  wish  my  steps  might  tend  Eastward 
rather,  and  so  find  you  in  the  old  places, 
with  the  pain  of  loss  everywhere  and  yet 
with  a  diviner  gain  beside. 

November,  1891. 

To-day  I  am  making  a  sad  little  pil- 
grimage to  Lowell,  whence  has  suddenly 
departed  one  who  was  oh  so  good  to  me 
when  I  was  a  little  child.  The  leaves  fall 
fast  from  the  tree  of  earthly  life,  and  one 
has  to   live  on  a  sort  of  military  basis: 

[73] 


LETTERS 

going  to  the  grave  with  muffled  drums, 
and  returning  with  the  flag  flying  yet  once 
again. 

February,  1892. 

The  whole  living  and  breathing  world 
beside  has  been  filing  in  platoons  before 
my  weary  eyes,  but  here  is  a  Thursday 
afternoon  with  a  great  snow  storm  going 
on  outside,  and  I  flatter  myself, —  Alas 
for  human  ignorance!  at  this  moment  I 

hear  the  voice  of in  the  hall  below, 

and  all  is  over.  .  .  . 

Midnight. 

And  all  was  over,  for  the  fashionable 
caller  who  goes,  rather  than  comes,  came 
not,  but  the  affectionate  few  who  go  not 
but  stay  did  appear.   .  .  . 

New  York,  March  24,  1892. 

I  am  writing  from  New  York  on  my 
way  to  Bermuda  for  two  weeks.   ...  I 
take  with  me   the  munitions  of  war,  oil 
[74] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

paints,  pastel,  and  even  water  colours,  for 
who  shall  say  of  what  complexion  the 
emotions  of  Bermuda  will  be? 

Bermuda,  April  12,  1892. 

It  is  a  little  world  all  by  itself  and  a 
world  of  colour,  as  its  main  attribute.  Such 
a  Sea,  such  a  Sky!  a  dream  of  beauty  dif- 
ferent from  anything  else  and  I  can  see 
amazing  pictures  to  be  painted  at  every 
turn.   .   .   . 

The  local  incident;  the  white  houses 
built  from  the  coral  of  which  the  island 
itself  is  made,  ...  the  negroes  and  their 
picturesque  methods,  the  acres  of  lilies  all 
in  fragrant  bloom,  these  things  one  can 
only  glance  at  in  writing,  but  some  day  I 
will  tell  you  a  pretty  chapter  of  geography 
and  history  made  out  of  this  strange  island 
in  the  sea,  so  lovely  and  so  serene. 


[75] 


LETTERS 

November,  1892. 

Oh,  having  a  Show  is  n't  half  so  leisurely 
a  proceeding  as  I  had  supposed,  and  I  have 
never  been  so  busy  in  my  life,  I  guess,  as  for 
the  last  three  days.  But  the  world,  critics 
and  otherwise,  takes  the  Show  more  seri- 
ously than  ever  it  did  before;  and  that  gives 
me  a  grave  pleasure.  Indeed  I  have  felt  a 
great  many  things,  owing  to  folks  and  their 
remarks. 

March  6,  1893. 

I  think  sometimes  that  I  have  no  right 
to  have  dear  friends  who  love  me,  for  this 
strenuous  life  allows  so  little  space  for  the 
acts  or  even  the  words  of  love.  Work  and 
incessant  demands,  together  with  the  main- 
tenance of  habitual  responsibilities  and 
cares,  preclude  simple  free  action  and  make 
me  seem  a  niggard. 

Easter  Monday,  1893. 

Easter  went  as  Easter  must,  well ;  for  is 
it  not  a  day  of  the  future  ?  .  .  .  Your  letters 

[76] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

.  .  .  have  been  comfort  and  joy  to  me,  and 
I  count  and  know  them  every  one,  and  need 
them ;  if  indeed  one  dares  say  one  needs 
anything. 

Chicago,   October,  1893. 

Chicago,  and  this  is  early  of  a  Thursday 
morning  having  arrived  over  night  late, 
but  in  good  order :  and  having  awaked 
this  morning  to  find  the  brightest  sunshine 
and  warmth  while  the  Hotel  boasts  fewer 
lions  and  more  rocking  chairs  than  we 
were  led  to  suppose.  The  party  is  pretty 
large  and  I  shall  try  to  lose  most  of  it 
whenever  opportunity  offers,  and  to  find 
it  again  at  hours  of  meat  and  drink. 

But  after  all  I  shall  care  really  for  the 
main  issue,  which  is  to  see  that  great  gen- 
eral sight  and  to  wonder  and  dream. 

October  30,  1893.   Studio. 

I  got  very  little  at  Cape  Ann  in  my 
second  day  with  everything  gray  and  gen- 

[77] 


LETTERS 

erally  discrepant,  but  I  am  minded  to  throw 
it  on  a  larger  canvas  and  see  what  can  be 
done  with  memory  and  hope,  those  potent 
factors  of  the  spirit. 

November  14,  1893. 

Then  came  Edward  Cabot's  funeral. 
Your  thoughts  and  mine  are  not  far  from 
each  other's ;  for  this  mighty  Herald  comes 
on  either  hand  and  fills  one  with  hope  and 
with  grief  both  at  once.  ...  I  wish  the 
day  might  bless  you  as  it  did  those  who 
stood  around  Mr.  Parkman's  grave  last 
Saturday  (the  first  day  of  St.  Martin's  Sum- 
mer) with  gold  and  violet  and  deepest  red 
over  all  the  Earth,  and  in  the  Sky — heaven. 

Undated. 

I  missed  you  by  one  minute  to-day !  and 
could  not  show  you  the  white  roses  still 
shining  as  they  shone  when  they  came  to 
me    Saturday;  and    the   laurel    stood    up 

[78] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

proudly  and  spoke  of  strife  and  heroes,  and 
all  that  long  story  that  the  laurel  tells. 

April  3  (1895?). 

The  great  event  of  the  Library  has  come 
and  passed,  and  still  one  goes  to  view  the 
scheme,  and  see  how  immense  the  Sargent 
decoration  is.  I  shall  not  talk  of  it  at  all 
until  I  talk  of  it  with  you  on  the  spot,  and 
then  we  will  say  great  swelling  words  of 
pride,  and  some  of  criticism  too,  for  some 
chances  are  missed,  inevitable  in  such  a 
new  departure. 

July  23,  1895. 

.  .  .  Not  my  plans,  but  the  arrangements 
and  expectations  of  others  make  up  all  my 
days,  so  far  this  summer,  which  I  say  not 
by  way  of  complaint,  but  just  of  statement. 
I  take  refuge  in  dreams ;  a  little  more  thick 
and  fast  than  usual  just  now,  because  my 
eyes  have  been  well  for  three  weeks  and 
because  that  means  a  more  thumping  beat 

[79] 


LETTERS 

of  the  old  pulse.  But  I  can  only  look  and 
long  yet  awhile,  so  far  as  getting  the  dream 
on  foot  is  concerned.  .  .  . 

Have  you  read  Symonds'  Life  and  Let- 
ters? He  sends  out  such  a  brave  courageous 
cry  and  heartens  those  who  hear  him. 
And  somehow  it  made  me  feel  afresh  some 
of  the  weak  spots  in  the  Christian  Science 
scheme  that  refuses  to  allow  pain  to  be  a 
minister  by  refusing  its  existence.  I  guess 
we  must  re-adjust  the  new  dogmas  nearer 
to  the  heart's  necessities.  Grief  indeed 
"makes  the  young  spring  wild/'  but  grief 
endured  and  dimly  understood,  seems  to 
smite  into  one  some  of  the  deepest  recog- 
nitions of  the  human  Spirit.  .  .  .  You  see 
I  am  wishing  and  needing  to  see  you  very 
much. 

September  5,  1895.    (Day  after  Labor  Day.) 

Well,  there  is  one  thing  to  be  said  of  this 
summer,  it  has  been  "  all  of  a  piece ; "  and 
to  those  who  demand  continuity  as  a  prime 

[  80] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

factor  in  affairs,  I  doubt  if  any  scheme  of 
events  could  suit  better.  It  would  make 
you  merry  if  I  might  rehearse  the  history 
of  yesterday,  par  exemple  ;  beginning  with 
a  series  of  breakfasts  for  a  series  of  blood- 
relations  ;  and  at  9.30  flying  to  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church  to  witness  the  wedding 
of  Ford  the  gardener's  daughter.  It  was 
by  the  way  a  very  extraordinary  spectacle 
to  one  who  stepped  in  off  a  simple  Beverly 
Farms  highway,  and  found  a  little  glitter- 
ing mass  of  candles  and  incense  and  holy 
water  and  genuflecting  men  and  boys. 
Seven  prelatical  persons  and  a  large  choir 
did  it  take  to  marry  Louisa  Ford !  and  the 
lace  and  little  acolytes  made  a  middle-age 
picture  so  strange  as  never  was;  and  I 
seemed  in  the  space  of  that  hour  to  think 
through  more  facts  about  the  human  heart 
and  life  and  death  and  all  things,  than  in 
years  of  less  acute  meditation.  O  how 
wonderful  it  all  is,  and  how  the  pulse  of 

[81  ] 


LETTERS 

humanity  is  beating  like  a  trip-hammer  in 
every  crevice  and  under  every  tree.  Well, 
that  is  the  way  my  day  began,  but  I  must 
take  you  through  its  convolutions.  Suffice 
it  to  say  that  in  the  early  morning  I  had 
asked  myself  why  this  new  festa  had  not 
been  called  felicitously  Play  Day ;  but  in 
the  stilly  night  I  perceived  that  the  Fa- 
thers were  wiser  than  I ;  for  a  day  more 
full  of  Labor  (there  were  so  called  "Sports" 
going  on  for  hours)  I  had  never  known. 
.  .  .  Also  there  was  a  sound  of  coming 
Bourgets  in  the  air;  and  a  sort  of  Gallic 
stir  within  me,  as  well  as  a  New  England 
fear  of  all  the  consequences  involved  by 
their  approach.  .  .  .  Just  now  I  am  re- 
turning from  a  morning  of  jobs  of  an  al- 
truistic sort,  with  one  little  shy  at  the 
glass-work  thrown  in. 

September  17,  1895. 

I  make  little  fugitive  sketches  of  things 
seen  from  car  windows  as  I  fly  back  and 

[82] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

forth  from  glass  and  marble  shops  —  or 
of  a  belated  moon  which  waits  for  the 
game  of  billiards  to  be  over  and  then 
comes  creeping  from  the  rim  of  earth, 
smoky  with  earth*s  vapors,  but  burning 
with  O  such  inward  fire ! 

These  things  console  me ;  and  I  so  re- 
port to  you.  This  is  one  of  the  summers 
when  there  is  nothing  to  tell  unless  you 
tell  everything.  I  think  I  have  felt  more 
molten  within,  if  you'll  forgive  so  clumsy 
a  term,  than  in  any  summer  I  ever  spent, 
yet  it  would  puzzle  me  to  mention  any 
one  incident.  In  fact  there  have  been 
none,  only  persistent  tumultuous  feeling, 
highly  controlled  as  must  ever  be  and  non- 
resultant,  save  perhaps  for  some  inner  mo- 
bilization. 

October  8,  1895. 

O  was  n't  I  disappointed  and  am  I  not  dis- 
appointed still !  and  thanking  you  for  your 
kind  letter,  but  still  feeling  that  Literature 

[83  ] 


LETTERS 

had  no  Claims  which  Friendship  ought  to 
respect !  But  seriously,  beloved  friend,  I 
knew  just  how  it  was  and  I  like  to  hear 
of  the  work  singing  in  your  head  to  be 
done,  and  I  hope  every  falling  leaf  makes 
contribution  to  the  Theme,  and  each  white 
star  approves  the  same.  ...  I  haven't 
written  because  I  have  been  at  it  in  such 
a  relentless  fashion.  People  have  penetrated 
every  corner  of  my  being,  there  have  been 
book-covers  .  .  .  and  Dr.  Holmes'  me- 
morial tablet,  and  pastel  heads  of  growing 
infants,  and  moans  of  memory,  and  meet- 
ings, and  all  the  other  innumerable  happen- 
ings of  the  Fall,  which  I  now  perceive  is  all 
Summer  and  all  Winter  squeezed  together ! 
Thus  even  my  letter  becomes  a  cata- 
logue, and  I  am  somewhat  ashamed  even 
to  write  to  you  at  all,  but  nevertheless  I 
love  you  well  enough  not  to  mind  these  in- 
fringements of  the  proprieties  of  friendship 
and  so  shall  despatch  this  silly  sheet. 

[84] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

November  12,  1895. 
In  the  train  for  Newport. 

I  have  indeed  had  a  wonderful  little 
vacation,  seeing  the  landscape  which  is  al- 
ways to  me  the  largest,  the  most  full  of 
intimation;  and  at  Newport  the  "passion 
of  Autumn'*  is  more  felt  than  anywhere  I 
think  in  the  world  !  The  sea  turns  from 
violets  into  pansies  ;  the  great  clouds  en- 
trench themselves  in  more  substantial  ram- 
parts. And  I  am  full  of  gratitude  for  hav- 
ing a  few  days  of  wonder  before  the  actual 
and  immediate  come  rattling  about  my 
ears. 

November  22,  1895. 

I  fell  to  work  and  began  thinking  of  the 
winter,  a  thought  I  have  not  hitherto  al- 
lowed myself  because  that  way  madness 
lay !  But  now  I  grow  bolder  and  venture 
to  plan  somewhat  for  things  to  be.  And  to 
think  of  the  Window  in  a  thousand  differ- 
ent ways,  a  way  of  thinking  through  which 

[85] 


LETTERS 

I  must  pass  before  I  decide  upon  one  way. 
And  I  have  now  had  definite  talk  with  the 
powers  at  Trinity  and  there  is  no  doubt 
that  the  Class  will  be  allowed  to  put  its 
memorial  to  Mr.  Brooks  there,  in  the 
triple  window  which  we  have  in  our  own 
room.  So  that  is  for  the  immediate  future, 
and  I  guess  not  much  portrait  painting 
this  year,  except  that  it  is  never  safe  to  pro- 
phesy !  But  enough  of  Shop. 

I  have  been  this  evening  to  dine  at 
Shady  Hill  with  that  hot,  pulsing  and 
amazing  creature  R.  Kipling;  and  he  was 
exceedingly  interesting,  real  and  full  of  talk. 
He  seemed  in  fact  like  a  focus  of  creative 
energy,  with  that  dark  imaginative  eye 
behind  the  glass.  I  had  never  seen  the 
Banjo  Song  which  he  recited  in  a  sort  of 
still,  molten  way,  and  which  I  think  the 
most  humane  and  large  word,  albeit 
couched  in  the  short  syllables  of  a  sort  of 
refrain,  he  has  ever  written.  It  all  made 
[86] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

me  feel  very  strangely  as  I  came  into  town 
again  under  a  gray  sky  ....  I  think  Mrs. 
Ward  has  given  a  fresh  turn  on  the  wheel, 
so  far  as  strength  and  texture  in  the  fabric 
of  her  work  goes.  Sir  George  Tressady 
opens  with  a  stout  clutch  on  her  material 
and  firm  and  easy  movement.  It  seems  a 
very  live  world  to  me  to-night,  as  you  see, 
my  friend  ;  and  I  am  dying  for  talk  and 
those  things  which  come  with  speech  and 
companionship  when  one  knows  there  is 
everything  to  be  said.  A  hot  silence  has 
some  gleams  of  delight  in  it,  but  one  is 
left  rather  like  a  crater  thereafter. 

But  my  one  word  is  made  of  many  syl- 
lables and  I  must  reduce  it  to  two  and  say 
good-night. 

Shall  I  not  say  also  God  bless  you  ? 

Birthday,  1895. 

Your  note  and  the  lovely  book  came 
almost  together  and  made  me  feel  a  great 

[87] 


LETTERS 

warmth  about  the  heart.  One  never  re- 
covers from  the  intensity  of  association 
with  anniversaries  and  festivals,  but  one 
would  gladly  evade  them ;  they  open  such 
doors  into  the  chambers  which  everyday 
life  and  everyday  work  enable  one  to  avoid. 
And  the  touch  of  a  friend's  hand  is  full 
of  consolation. 

March  4,  1896. 

I  think  I  have  not  written  much  of  late, 
you  seemed  to  be  out  of  reach  of  letters, 
and  beside  I  have  been  in  a  great  valley  of 
silence  in  which  I  seemed  to  have  learned 
much  that  I  knew  not  of  before.  I 
have  been  alone  long  days  together ;  I 
have  worked  and  dreamed,  and  have  felt 
the  days  blessed  and  the  lesson  of  contin- 
uance begun. 

April  3,  1896.   At  Sea. 

The  "  deep  "  was  n't  very  bad,  but  some- 
how I   succumbed  with   more   than  my 
[88] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

usual  facility  (spite  of  the  presence 
of  dear  S.  C.  W/s  Elixir);  that  admirable 
weapon  the  Human  Will  going  to  pieces 
as  if  it  were  made  of  flax ;  and  reducing 
one  to  terms  of  which  we  will  not  speak 
for  very  scorn.  But  now  I  have  regained 
a  human  composure.  .  .  .  Not  having 
thought  I  naturally  have  not  read,  till  now 
I  find  myself  wandering  in  the  sweet 
mystic  pages  of  Le  Tresor  des  Humbles^ 
where  I  find  some  words  that  have  much 
truth  and  beauty.  I  think  you  will  have 
read  it  too,  and  will  have  believed  that 
the  soul  is  entering  upon  such  possessions 
as  are  therein  described.  Ah,  how  the 
"dream  saves  the  world,''  how  real  is 
that  which  lies  just  out  of  sight  it  may  be, 
but  not  out  of  feeling. 

June  26,  1896. 

Last  night   having   16,000  letters  and 
jobs  to  do,  I  turned  aside  and  just,  first, 

[89] 


LETTERS 

read  the  last  chapters  from  that  most  real 
country  where  someone  is  living  with  the 
Pointed  Firs.  Just  altogether  beautiful  I 
call  it,  dear,  and  wish  to  tell  you  so,  be- 
cause there  is  gratitude,  and  then  the 
heart's  gratitude,  that  strange  deep  joy  of 
the  soul  at  touch  or  sight  of  a  new  sym- 
pathy with  the  soul's  life ;  I  love  to  have 
you  write  and  write  in  these  levels ;  where 
star  and  pebble  make  part  of  the  divine 
chord.  ...  I  am  working  as  hard  as  I 
can,  with  no  intention  of  ever  stopping,  if 
I  can  help  it,  this  side  heaven. 

October  i8,  1896. 

I  have  really  been  working  day  and  night 
for  weeks,  the  little  portraits  of  the  little 
children,  and  then  Dr.  Mitchell  appearing 
with  a  view  to  portraiture  and  yet  with  a 
relish  for  Society ;  these  things  have  kept 
me  on  a  stretch  not  wholly  admirable. 
However  one  got  something  out  of  it,  and 

[90] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

some  moments  of  intercourse  with  the 
children  —  some  hints  of  the  untried  se- 
crets of  those  Httle  hearts  have  seemed  to 
me  deep  chapters  in  experience.  But  with- 
out time  I  will  not  speak  of  the  eternities. 

Old  Place,    October  25,  1896. 

It  was  a  great  comfort  to  get  that  dear 
letter  and  it  gave  me  beside  a  swift  impulse 
to  go  sailing  down  the  coast  to  Berwick. 
.  .  .  I  did  not  do  it;  but  that  is  only  an 
incident,  the  impulse  was  the  large,  round, 
whole  scheme.  Now  it 's  Sunday,  and  on 
Wednesday  I  shall  strike  my  tent  and  be 
off  for  the  winter  campaign,  with  a  terri- 
ble sense  of  weakness  at  the  heart,  but  a 
great  many  straps  and  buckles  about  the 
belt,  wherewith  I  hope  to  make  some  stout 
show. 

March  10,  1897. 

I  must  have  one  word  with  those  who 
tarry  in  Virginia  and  see  the  Spring  walk- 

[91  ] 


LETTERS 

ing  with  visible  sweet  feet  over  the  edges 
of  the  Hills.  .  .  .  Here  there  is  a  sort  of 
molten  condition  which  is  perhaps  the  way 
it  is  going  to  be  always,  and  the  more  I 
endeavor  to  pull  out  of  the  hot,  hopeless 
sea  of  events,  the  more  the  whirlpools  suck 
me  down ;  and  I  am  about  to  make  a  cut 
clean  across  the  face  of  human  relation- 
ships. But  not  till  after  the have  come 

for  this  Sunday  and  perhaps for  the 

next  and  intermittent  folks  appearing,  re- 
appearing, disappearing  for  the  Master- 
pieces and  all  the  rest  of  it.  I  keep  saying 
to  myself,  how  good  it  was  that  I  once 
read  a  book,  or  learned  a  verse  of  poetry, 
because  now  it's  such  a  Big  book  I  can't 
more  than  hold  it  —  this  Book  of  Life, 
and  the  Poem's  got  to  be  written  not  read. 

April,  1897. 

O  my  friend,  this  is  hard  indeed  to  bear, 
and  my  heart  aches  with  all  your  hearts 
[92] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

in  this  deep  loss  and  pain  !  How  to  com- 
fort each  other  —  but  this  God  knows  and 
will  make  plain,  and  we  who  love  you  so 
much  must  wait  for  the  coming  of  this 
consolation.  I  bless  Him  that  you  were 
there,  sustaining  and  helping  all,  and  going 
down  with  your  dear  sister  so  far  as  the 
edge  of  that  wonderful  river  —  that  sea  of 
life.  Ah,  across  its  wave  how  many  have 
come  into  port  and  are  in  that  perfect 
felicity  towards  which  we  yearn. 

April  5,  1897. 

This  is  just  a  little  letter  ...  for  this 
day  of  peace,  when  grief  had  in  it  no  sort 
of  bitterness,  and  when  all  the  sweetness 
and  goodness  of  noble  living  in  its  genera- 
tions seemed  to  glorify  the  day  and  mingle 
with  the  spring  which  hung  along  the 
watercourses  and  in  the  wide  air.  It  helped 
and  consoled  me  to  be  there.  .  .  .  These 
messengers  of  death  do  indeed  come  thick 
[93] 


LETTERS 

and  fast  to  us  now,  but  one  finds  a  voice 
full  of  life  which  sings  above  the  flowers. 
...  I  ask  a  blessing  for  you  every  day. 

April  1 6,  1897. 

You  will  find  that  open  door  this  Easter 
which  no  one  can  shut. 

April  30,  1897. 

The  sap  mounts  in  the  human  tree  with 
the  spring ;  and  I  wish  I  could  go  into  the 
wilderness  and  do  one  long,  rich  job  freely 
beneath  the  stars  and  the  sunshine.  You 
will  know  the  surge  of  impulse  which  sets 
in  with  the  little  blades  of  the  grass,  which 
matches  the  maple  buds  and  the  willow's 
yellowing  bark.  Ah,  to  step,  some  day,  fur- 
ther westward ! 

June  14,  1897.   Old  Place. 

If  you  knew  how  grave  I  am  at  sight 
of  this  sea !  What  wonder  it  wakes  in  me, 
what  surmise,  what  anguish,  what  hope ! 

[94] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

July  14,  1897.  Old  Place. 
I  think  this  year  I  am  more  deeply  aware 
than  ever  before  of  what  is  going  on  at  the 
Centre,  that  is  of  the  real  thing  in  reality. 
From  which  statement  I  do  not  want  you 
to  think  this  a  psychological  disquisition, 
but  just  an  allusion  to  a  state  of  feeling. 

I  wish  I  could  tell  you  what  this  par- 
ticular day  (and  many  others)  is  like.  It 's 
like  being  set  to  deal  with  elements  as  varied 
as  the  gift  in  Pandora's  box.  I  might  sum- 
marize by  enumeration  for  illustration. 
Mrs.  Lawrence, 
Victor's  necessities, 
Jack's  disappearances, 
A  sick  servant, 

People  who  are  coming  and  don't  come. 
People  who  are  not  coming  and  come. 
Together  with  personal  impressions  and 
predilections;  together  with  inveter- 
ate tendencies,  and  the  law  of  dimin- 
ishing returns. 

[95] 


LETTERS 

But  I  cannot  write  to  send  you  cata- 
logues and  forbear. 

August  1 1,  1897. 

Bar  Harbour  is  Washington  out-of-doors, 
so  far  as  its  being  really  a  little  cosmopolis, 
with  traces  of  all  climes  and  conditions  in 
a  fine  melee,  and  social  impulse  fusing  the 
material.  Well,  for  two  or  three  days,  it  is 
not  bad,  and  I  am  glad  to  get  for  a  mo- 
ment off  rails  which  have  more  persistent 
grip  in  them  than  usual  even. 

August  28,  1897. 

I  went  down  yesterday  and  spent  the 
night  at  Saunderstown  .  .  .  the  Rhode  Is- 
land landscape ;  always  one  step  nearer 
Heaven  than  any  other  landscape  for  me. 
The  conditions  were  small  at  this  little 
town,  which  is  no  town  at  all,  but  only  a 
few  houses  dropped  by  accident  in  the 
fields,  and  an  old  pier  straggling  idly  out 
to  meet  some  tiny  boats  which  puff  in 

[96] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

from  Jamestown  to  Newport  every  now 
and  then,  only  this,  but  divine !  .  .  .  Much 
talk  with  Jack  about  politics  and  the  cri- 
tique of  Nelson.  A  splendid  order  and  we 
had  some  agreements  as  to  the  construction 
of  a  piece  of  work  which  would  leave 
Nelson  in  his  due  blaze  of  glory,  and  then 
have  room  to  say  one  word  concerning 
something  greater  than  Glory.  But  I  am 
sure  Mahan  has  forgotten  that  one  cannot 
consider  a  romantic  hero  like  Nelson  apart 
from  his  star,  has  failed  to  recognize  that 
this  fiery  genius,  sincere,  passionate,  simple 
and  amazingly  child-like,  loved  as  he 
fought,  and  the  proportions  make  his  love 
forever  heroic.  .  .  .  Your  letter  was  a  great 
comfort,  coming  on  a  dull  day.  I  am  all 
right;  and  never,  you  know,  can  lead  an 
easy  life.  For  which  we  must  always  give 
thanks. 


[97] 


LETTERS 

September  24,  1897. 

O  is  n't  it  splendid  to  feel  the  sap  run- 
ning up  and  see  the  new  bud  forming  it- 
self to  its  supreme  end !  These  things  send 
one  to  the  altar  anew.  ...  I  put  in  this 
some  letters  just  come  which  made  me 
weep  those  strange  tears  of  grateful  love, 
which  never  find  a  voice,  but  which  keep 
the  heart  nourished  and  refreshed  as  with 
the  dew  of  Heaven. 

October  17,  1898. 

To-day  the  sea  has  been  a  deep  lapis 
lazuli :  the  sky  clear,  and  the  wind  one  rush 
across  the  earth,  and  it  has  not  seemed  to 
me  one  minute's  distance  to  the  Moun- 
tains where  these  friends  have  held  the  air 
in  fee.  So  I  have  had  companionship  and 
have  gathered  some  fresh  impulses  and  in 
some  brief  intervals  have  hammered  out 
a  bit  of  work. 

[  98] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

March  i8,  1898. 

The  last  of  the  four  quatrefoils  is  done 
to-day :  and  I  have  a  momentary  sensation 
like  Christian's  when  the  pack  fell  off.  .  .  . 
There  *s  that  in  the  Spring  which  makes 
a  strange  tumult  and  lends  wings  to  the 
Dream. 

Julys,  1898. 

The  window  was  up,  and  I  saw  some 
things  to  do  to  it  (not  crucial  things,  but 
those  which  would  make  a  better  balance 
when  all  was  done)  and  then  I  felt  dis- 
solved and  empty  and  undone.  Indeed  in 
some  ways  I  feel  so  still,  and  if  I  could  have 
done  exactly  as  I  felt  I  should  have  gone 
straight  out  somewhere  .  .  .  to-morrow 
I  fly  to  Niagara  for  one  long  solitary  look 
at  that  Altar.  Well,  it  was  shown  for 
Class  Day  and  again  at  RadclifFe's  Com- 
mittee, and  at  half-past  ten  on  Wednesday 
when  the  President  entered  and  walked 

[99] 


LETTERS 

gloriously  between  the  rows  of  students 
lined  up  on  either  side,  when  he  did  this 
the  curtain  was  swiftly  withdrawn  and  the 
gift  was  in  the  hands  of  the  College.  .  .  . 
If  some  of  those  youths  care  a  little,  I  shall 
have  had  my  day.  ...  I  feel  in  spite  of 
the  dust  and  ashes  to  which  I  have  con- 
fessed a  sort  of  landscape  passion  which 
always  surges  up  about  this  time,  and 
makes  havoc  with  my  composure.  Per- 
haps there  '11  be  little  opportunities,  and 
there  is  always  room  for  looking  into  the 
night  and  watching  for  the  morning. 

In  answer  to  a  letter  from  Rheims. 

July  17,  1898. 

Yes,  it  was  there  color  bloomed  for  me 
on  the  Gothic  stem ;  for  there  you  have 
found  that  it  is  in  the  clerestory  that  they 
put  (as  in  no  other)  the  rainbow ;  leaving 
the  lower  windows  pale ;  and  no  one  hav- 
ing ever  told  me  this  I  entered  to  find  that 
[  100  ] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

violet  twilight  lying  all  above  arid  to  be 
overwhelmed  by  it.  ...  I  did  go  to 
Niagara  and  I  had  there  forty-eight  hours 
of  silence  and  of  solitude.  Not  that  I  was 
alone,  for  all  the  hours  were  filled  with 
beautiful  and  high  companionship  —  but 
there  was  silence.  I  found  a  little  plain 
hotel  .  .  .  with  a  chamber  one  window 
of  which  looked  upon  the  American  Fall 
and  the  other  upon  that  High  Altar  of 
which  I  have  dreamed  ever  since  that  day 
I  spent  beside  it.  So  I  studied  and  sketched 
and  wondered  every  minute.  .  .  .  And 
some  secrets  I  seemed  to  learn ;  some  of 
the  story  of  that  divine  white  passion  of 
the  flood.  Some  of  its  meanings  when  the 
rainbow  floods  all  that  soft  tumult  into 
rosy  fire  ;  or  when  it  feels  the  quickened 
throb  of  the  south  wind  blowing  across 
Lake  Erie.  I  think  I  must  make  many 
pilgrimages  there  and  then  perhaps  I  can 
come  a  little  nearer  to  the  dream.  .  .  .  All 
[  loi  ] 


,9,,  f"''    f 


.  -.LETTERS 

c*^    "^p*f        <     **«     1  ,,      .      ,,  i 

this,  without  one  word  of  the  tremendous 
days  in  which  as  citizens  we  live,  now, 
thank  Heaven,  with  peace  in  sight,  after 
the  surrender  of  Santiago.  You  must  know 
too  that  one  has  felt  a  great  splendor  in 
the  heroic  ways  of  our  men,  gentle  and 
simple,  and  though  one  quakes  over  the 
imperialist  rubbish  which  is  in  the  political 
melee,  there  is  a  great  patriotism  in  the 
heart  of  us. 

November  3,  1899. 

I  had  the  first  real  day  in  the  studio  to- 
day since  June  i  oth,  and  now  hope  to  be 
able  to  do  Some  Work.  But  one  never 
knows,  and  then  what  you  do  do,  never 
seems  to  be  just  it,  but  only  just  before  it. 
All  of  which  is  part  of  the  Philosophy. 

March  23,  1900.    Studio. 

.  .  .  You  have  been  gone  looo  years, 
and  though  to  you  it  is  as  one  day,  do  not 
forget  the  American   standpoint,  as  you 
[  102  ] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

drink  the  wine  of  Attica  or  sip  the  honey 
of  Hymettus.  Remember  the  difference 
between  the  active,  transitive,  and  the 
neuter  verb;  remember  that  in  Europe 
you  do  what  you  expect  to  do,  in  America 
that  which  is  expected  of  you;  and  give 
thanks  that  you  are  not  as  other  men  are! 
I  can't  even  remember  when  you  went 
away;  it  is  so  long,  counting  by  the  sense 
of  loss,  and  by  the  humbled  remembrance 
of  human  demand  which  has  been  in  a 
state  of  turbulent  activity.  Radcliffe  has 
been  exacting  because  of  changes  in  the 
Board  and  questions  of  development,  the 
Museum  School  has  questions  to  meet, 
there  is  to  be  an  Artists'  Festival  and  pre- 
parations therefor,  and  every  stranger  on 
earth  has  decided  to  visit  Boston.  Every- 
one, even  my  unworthy  self,  has  had  grippe 
more  or  less  so  that  the  city  record  may  be 
reported  as  1 50,000  cases  for  the  year  ! 
But  I  must  tell  you,  dear  friend,  that  after 

[  103] 


LETTERS 

a  little  visit  from  Georgy  Schuyler,  (she 
came  back  in  a  week  to  see  me,)  in  which 
she  had  a  taste  of  all  that  Boston  can  boast 
of  Art,  Literature,  and  Religion;  then  there 
appeared  Dr.  Weir  Mitchell  to  have  his 
Portrait  painted  and  be  entertained  by  the 
Tavern  Club.  It  is  a  terrible  thing  to  have 
your  delightful  sitter  staying  under  your 
roof!  To  be  pouring  coffee  and  urging  re- 
pose for  the  very  person  whose  canvas  is 
waiting  in  Boylston  Street  is  one  of  the 
tests  of  character,  and  I  will  not  say  how 
much  mine  has  lost  or  gained  under  this 
fire.  But  at  all  events  the  portrait  has  made 
a  reasonable  good  beginning,  in  spite  of 
*  dining  and  wining,'  and  the  fact  that  the 
Edinboro*  gown  is  an  artistic  solecism  being 
of  a  red-and-blue  as  if  one  were  wrapped 
in  the  American  Flag.  The  Tavern  dinner 
was  really  brilliant  with  Norton,  Holmes, 
Wister,  and  Munsterberg  and  all  the  rest. 
Owen  made  a  gay  beginning  to  a  very  se- 
[  104  ] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

rious  and  eloquent  speech,  by  telling  what 
his  associations  were  with  the  Club  as  a 
founder,  when  they  were  young  and  ignor- 
ant. "I  return  after  many  years,"  he  said, 
"to  find  it  changed  into  a  Den  of  Lions, 
and  what  am  I  but  a  little  Daniel  in  the 
midst  of  them !  "  I  record  here  my  belief 
that  Owen  is  going  on,  and  that  his  moral 
force  is  potentially  very  large. 

But  this  is  only  written  to  send  love, 
and  to  complain  that  there  is  no  message 
in  the  stars,  and  one  is  only  keeping  content 
when  one  consults  the  Calendar  and  not  the 
Heart,  and  sees  that  the  days  are  too  few 
for  report  though  not  for  expectation. 

Greeting  to  the  August  Ladies  who  are 
in  your  company,  from  S.  W. 

7  A.  M.  July  27,  1900, 
Stocks,  Tring,  England. 

The  doves  and  all  the  other  sweet  sounds 
,of  this  English  summer  are  making  a  sort 

[  105] 


LETTERS 

of  symphony  in  the  air,  and  I  am  a-prepar- 
ing  to  return  early,  for  late  breakfast,  in 
short,  after  tea  in  this  idyllic  garden  and 
an  evening  of  large  hospitality  and  happi- 
ness. ...  I  had  a  real  talk  with  Mrs.  Ward 
under  the  trees ;  and  all  this  has  been  a 
lasting  pleasure.  ...  So  from  out  this  shel- 
ter (a  word  which  takes  on  such  inexplica- 
ble perfume  as  life  grows  longer)  and  on 
this  lyric  morning,  I  have  this  one  word 
with  you.  I  think  it  is  because  you  love 
me  that  I  am  here;  and  that  is  sweet. 
Heaven  bless  you ! 

August,  1900. 

I  found  my  escape  in  going  straight  to 
the  Cathedral  of  Chartres  yesterday  morn- 
ing. .  .  .  For  as  I  sojourned  there  from 
the  morning  early,  till  long  after  sunset,  I 
was  able  to  know  something  of  the  Sym- 
phony of  colour  which  is  daily  played 
there,  and  anything  more  matchless  can- 
not be,  in  this  world. 

[  106] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

October  22,  1901  (after  two  deaths). 

And  yesterday  Mrs.  Dorr  was  set  free 
after  so  long  a  captivity,  and  now  one  may 
believe  walks  freely  in  that  sky  at  which 
she  has  sat  looking  for  these  months  past. 

The  days  accordingly  go  on  with  slow 
dramatic  footsteps,  and  one  goes  on  with 
them  or  glad  or  sad,  but  in  any  case  strenu- 
ously set  to  the  selfsame  task.  And  Nature 
has  taken  such  a  hand  at  the  Game  this 
Fall.  I  have  never  known  such  splendors 
and  symbols^  such  announcements  of  "  lib- 
eral friendship"  and  of  high  augury.  My 
work  has  of  necessity  been  in  the  shop,  but 
I  have  listened  and,  I  hope,  learned  some- 
what of  these  adorable  open  secrets  of  the 
wide  air. 

May  15,  1902.   England. 

One  word  with  you  .  .  .  to-night,  by 

the  river  Dart,  ...  I  am  looking  out  on 

one  of  the  most  romantic  bits  of  English 

scenery  I  ever  beheld, — an  idyllic  loveli- 

[  107  ] 


LETTERS 

ness,  and  the  sea*s  pulse  stirring  every  now 
and  then  the  quiet  breast  of  the  stream. 
One  can  look  at  England  from  so  many 
points  of  view,  and  just  to-day  it  seems  to 
me  a  garden  in  which  dwell  the  most  in- 
nocent and  naive  beings  ever  known  in  this 
world  of  sin.  I  feel  quite  old  and  withered 
in  this  cheerful  young  company,  but  take 
heart  of  grace  because  of  their  gentle  acts. 
...  In  this  last  week  I  have  seen  some 
delightful  people;  .  .  .  the  long-dreamed- 
of  sight  in  her  own  house  of  Mrs.  Ritchie 
has  made  a  mark  on  my  heart  forever. 
And  so  I  might  go  on  telling  you  of  this 
strange  leisurely  life  in  this  more  than 
strange  world.  So  many  gates  open  quietly 
where  I  want  to  go  in  and  browse  a  little 
on  the  herbage. 

Walpole,  October  25,  1902. 

I  am  seeing  really  amazing  beauty,  a  great 
fall  mosaic  rich  as  Aaron's  breastplate  and 
multiplied  with  tones  and  overtones  of  color. 

[  108  ] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

Febraary  6,  1903. 

I  have  had  a  day  of  successive  events, 
none  of  them  of  my  own  election ;  and 
I  am  just  w^ondering  if  it  must  be  always 
thus.  I  contemplate  a  little  innocent  per- 
sonal strike !  So  watch  the  "  Evening  Tran- 
script/* 

August  2,  1903. 

Dear  old  fellow,  I  live  in  a  semi-de- 
tached condition,  and  do  or  do  not  as  my 
demon  bids,  having  an  almost  fierce  pre- 
determination to  do  as  nearly  as  I  can 
"  what  seems  best/'  The  result,  if  I  dare 
speak  of  results  at  all,  is  that  I  keep  a  little 
work  going,  fling  an  occasional  small  sop 
to  the  social  Cerberus,  read  a  little  (which 
I  have  not  done  for  many  years),  write 
only  when  I  can't  help  it  because  that 
nerve  seems  the  most  "  chawed  up"  of  all, 
and  pray  to  be  forgiven !  No  wonder  that 
under  these  conditions  my  hope  of  heaven 
seems  small.   .   .   . 

[  109  ] 


LETTERS 


TO    MISS    ALICE    WESTON    SMITH 
AND  MISS  PAULINA  CONY  SMITH 

In  the  train  for  Amiens. 
July  lo,  1894. 

Such  a  fortnight  as  I  have  had,  and  first 
such  a  week  as  the  week  in  London !  You 
see  it  was  all  new  to  me,  and  strange  as  it 
may  seem,  no  city  ever  took  such  extraor- 
dinary hold  on  me  as  this.  I  think  it  was 
the  human  creature  in  its  mass  and  in 
its  individuality  which  seems  to  be  more 
incorporated  there.  One  feels  as  if  human 
life  there  found  its  largest  centre,  —  there 
asserted  its  greatest  activity.  One  feels,  ah, 
a  thousand  things  !  and  to  walk  among  the 
old  walls  and  battlements,  and  enter  into 
happy  doors,  and  meet  new  friends  and 
old,  was  to  me  like  wine.  Nothing  but 
professional  integrity  could  have  forced  me 
to  wrench  myself  away  and  fly  to  Paris 
[  "o] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

for  the  Champs  de  Mars.  There  I  found 
a  few  really  fine  things,  —  things  not  to  be 
missed,  —  and  since  then  have  seen  much 
of  Mr.  Whistler,  and  had  great  joy  in  see- 
ing him  and  his  pictures,  and  in  sitting  in 
his  garden  flanked  by  the  old  hotels  of  the 
Faubourg  St.  Germain,  where  the  trees  are 
ambrosial  and  the  blackbirds  sing  round- 
elays. But  this  week  has  been  much  occu- 
pied in  taking  my  eyes  in  my  hand,  like  that 
pious  saint  of  old,  and  doing  what  the  doc- 
tor said  was  "  best,''  by  means  of  which  I  am 
supposed  to  become  a  regenerated  person 
and  stare  at  the  universe  with  fresh  powers. 
Yesterday,  being  freed  from  the  said 
doctor,  I  went  straight  to  Amiens,  and 
there  saw  my  first  Cathedral  and  was  so 
surprised  and  rejoiced  at  the  sight  that  I 
am  going  back  again  to-day  to  renew  my 
vows  and  perchance  make  some  studies 
there,  which  is  the  most  foolish  thing  — 
mats  que  voulez  vous  ? 

[II,] 


LETTERS 

Bayreuth,  August  19,  1894. 

If  I  could  have  shared  the  Parsifal  of 
to-day  with  you,  dearest  child,  I  should 
have  given  you  one  of  the  great  gifts.  I 
feel  sure  that  nowhere  else  to-day  could 
the  heart  of  man  be  so  lifted  up  by  modern 
art,  indeed  there  was  enacted  a  drama  of 
rich  significance  and  solemn  beauty.  Into 
such  a  moment  there  sweeps  the  glad  re- 
membrance of  all  other  great  and  momen- 
tous possessions;  and  the  great  theatre  was 
full  to  me  to-day  of  friends  and  of  associa- 
tions, of  memories  and  of  hopes.  I  came 
here  in  the  midst  of  all  the  stress  of  short 
time  and  so  much  to  do,  and  just  took  a 

week  of  perfect  quiet  with  my  friend 

and  have  heard  the  music  as  one  does 
under  such  conditions  ;  so  that  it  has  rested 
and  refreshed  the  spirit  more  than  can  be 
told ;  and  one  has  had  that  satisfaction 
which  comes  from  hearing  and  then  hear- 
ing again,  so  that  one  learns  as  well  as 
[iia] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

loves.  I  came  here  through  Cathedral 
aisles  as  it  were,  getting  Rheims  and  Laon 
and  Toul  all  on  the  road  hither,  each  one 
a  distinct  and  glorious  instance.  Rheims 
of  course  more  amazing  than  the  others, 
and  with  qualities  of  color  and  tone  wholly 
indescribable.  No  one  ever  had  told  me 
that  the  stained  glass  was  all  in  the  clere- 
story, whereby  the  vaults  are  like  twilight 
and  the  apse  has  a  soft  violet  gloom  which 
is  of  most  amazing  loveliness.  At  Laon,  a 
high  battlemented  town  reared  like  a  bas- 
tion above  the  plain,  the  Cathedral  makes 
a  monumental  pile;  and  there,  among  the 
thousand  Gothic  carvings,  are  set  in  one  of 
the  towers  the  shapes  of  the  patient  oxen 
who  drew  the  stone  from  the  valley  below. 
They  look  like  one  "Dane,"  and  all  other 
dear  animals,  and  are  enchanting  persons. 
And  so  I  do  not  as  you  see  tell  you  any- 
thing in  these  hurried  notes,  but  do  indi- 
cate at  what  a  terrible  pace  the  tongue 

[  113] 


LETTERS 

will  discourse,  come  Michaelmas !  Your 
letter  was  awful  pleasing  to  get  and  tales 

of  made  me  laugh  with  joy,  for  I 

know  the  sensation  of  having  her  "  lay  off 
her  things  and  stay  to  tea."  By  this  time 
too  the  thermometer  must  have  come  down, 
and  so  I  won't  take  the  Boston  weather  for 
my  theme.  I  have  always  tried  to  have  that 
art  of  correspondence  which  lies  in  telling 
one's  friend  just  what  was  in  that  friend's 
letter,  for  this  method  raises  epistolary  in- 
tercourse to  the  dignity  of  an  exact  science ; 
one  letter  will  serve  for  all  time  ! 

Paris,  September  21,  1894. 

Well,  on  the  6th  or  7th  of  October  I 
sail.  I  guess  it's  about  time,  for  good  and 
rich  and  informing  as  the  vacation  is,  I  see 
that  I  was  made  to  keep  my  hand  on  the 
plough,  and  though  I  trust  I  have  been 
looking  forward  as  well  as  back  in  Europe, 
it's  the  real  minding  of  the  furrow  that  is 

[  114] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

the  serious  concern,  and  I  must  turn  to  and 
get  into  the  field  again. 

October  3,  1894.  Train  from  Paris. 

Already  America  has  entered  into  the 
present  tense  with  me,  and  the  continent 
of  Europe  is  getting  back  on  the  Map  again 
instead  of  being  in  the  Almanac  for  the 
Summer  of  1894.  And  it  is  strange  to  see 
how  the  limits  of  a  holiday  adjust  them- 
selves; and  how  at  a  certain  minute  after 
the  idle  roaming  of  weeks,  suddenly  the 
plough  and  the  old  furrow  loom  up,  and 
one  is  aware  of  the  irresistible  impulse  to 
have  it  all  again.  But  I  have  had  a  great 
look  out :  have  found  the  beauty  of  a  time 
for  dreaming  and  wondering,  have,  in 
short,  I  must  believe,  added  to  the  stock 
of  the  imperishable,  and  I  feel  rich  and 
warm  within,  in  contemplating  these  gifts 
of  Life  and  Time.  In  some  strange  way 
also,  I  have  felt  this  summer  the  reality  of 
[  "5] 


LETTERS 

all  that  is  real  more  deeply;  the  presence 
of  those  who  are  absent.  I  have  been  more 
aware  of  Mr.  Brooks  than  ever  before,  and 
of  other  lovely  ones,  and  this  I  think  very 
strange  and  unexpected,  and  it  has  made 
great  shining  moments  for  me,  that  must 
stay  with  me,  for  they  cannot  be  taken 
away. 

October  28,  1895. 

To-day  is  a  dissected  map  of  the  very 
finest  possible  divisions  and  each  country 
is  occupied  by  a  self-constituted  constable 
who  does  not  mean  I  shall  escape  him.  In 
the  face  of  all  this  I  smile  (in  a  somewhat 
galvanic  manner)  and  Bruce  yawns,  but  the 
game  goes  on  !  I  did  get  very  near  to  you 
all  this  morning  when  I  rode  over  the 
Lynn  Marshes,  and  gold  and  blue  and  a 
sky-ey  rose  color  combined  to  make  a  web 
of  the  most  entrancing  mystery.  Winter 
and  Summer  do  not  fail,  only  nature  will 

[  116] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

not  arrange  herself  by  the  Clock  of  our 
circumstance,  will  not  be  bullied  nor  ca- 
joled, but  "  comes  unannounced  *'  as  Emer- 
son says  of  Beauty.  ...  I  perceive  that  we 
shall  converse  for  hours  on  biographical 
themes  when  we  meet.  And  I  shall  bring 
you  if  you  have  not  had  it  W.  J.'s  Is  Life 
Worth  Livingy  wherein  he  constructs  cour- 
age anew  for  those  who  must  stand  upon 
the  little  foothold  of  the  naked  human 
Will,  and  ** yearn  upward"  according  to 
the  conditions  of  that  Will's  higher  neces- 
sities. An  eager  and  noble  cry  from  such 
a  brave  and  tender  heart. 

April  13,  1896.  At  Sea. 

1  feel  perfectly  free  with  — —  and  he 
has  a  personal  interest  in  things  which 
make  him  near  and  remote  in  that  admi- 
rable manner  which  belongs  to  true  com- 
radeship. But  a  foot  on  terra  firma  will 
determine  many  things  which  now  drift  as 

C  117] 


LETTERS 

the  waves  drift.  Not  having  been  able  to 
think  I  naturally  have  not  been  able  to 
read,  till  now,  when  I  have  wandered  in 
these  sweet  mystic  pages  of  Maeterlinck, 
where  as  in  Le  Revet/  de  V  Ame  and  others 
in  the  same  vein  of  feeling,  I  feel  there  is 
truth  and  beauty  in  what  he  says.  The  eye 
of  the  Soul  seems  to-day  more  able  to  dis- 
cern the  "violet  ray''  of  the  spiritual  spec- 
trum, too,  and  those  "dreams  which  are 
not  idle  "  open  larger  vistas  than  have  been 
guessed  before.  One  ventures  to  say  to 
one's  self,  nothing  is  so  near  as  the  Majes- 
tic Far,  whither  I  speed,  and  so  one  is  at 
moments  rapt  into  great  presences. 

No  date. 

It 's  a  beastly  period,  this  preceding  such 
a  convulsion  of  nature  as  my  going  to 
Europe.  In  the  first  place  everything  here 
has  to  be  arranged  and  everything  there 
created.  I  feel  as  if  the  Continent  were 

C  ii8] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

one  long  picture  gallery  with  not  a  shop 
in  all  the  length  and  breadth  of  it ;  and  if 
one  were  discovered,  as  if  I  should  rather 
die  than  stop  to  buy  anything  in  it; 
whence  I  am  purchasing  stockings  by  the 
dozen  and  shoe-strings  by  the  gross :  and 
was  just  packing  up  all  my  postage  stamps 
when  I  remembered  that  there  national 
possibilities  gave  out.  I  have  a  list  of  things 
that  must  be  done,  as  long  as  the  Woman 
Suffrage  petition  in  New  York  State ;  and 
I  imagine  doomed  to  the  same  lack  of 
fulfilment;  but  I  go  on  just  the  same,  with 
a  sort  of  galvanic  energy. 


["9] 


LETTERS 

TO    MRS.   JAMES   T.   FIELDS 

1894. 
It  was  of  you  that  I  thought  first  and 
most  when  Mrs.  Thaxter's  valiant  soul 
went  on  its  lone  way  to  find  heavenly 
cohorts  of  waiting  friends  afar.  .  .  .  Now 
that  I  am  once  more  in  Paris,  I  hope  to  see 
Madame  Blanc-Bentzon,  but  the  lovely 
country  holds  its  lovers,  and  those  who  can 
linger  are  unwilling  to  return  to  the  little 
chop-sea  of  Parisian  life  as  it  is  just  now. 
I  am  cheered  by  having  Clemence  hard  by 
.  .  .  and  many  other  friendly  faces  bloom 
on  neighboring  bushes.  But  I  am  haunted 
by  the  "sensations  d'ltalie,"  and  a  dream 
from  which  perhaps  one  never  awakes. 


[  120  ] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 
TO   MRS.   RICHARD   M.   HUNT 

Undated. 

I  am  on  my  way  to  Newport,  that  I 
may  for  one  little  moment,  so  sacred  a 
moment,  be  near  you,  and  lay  one  leaf  of 
tender  homage  at  the  feet  of  him  whom 
it  has  been  such  a  delight  to  love  and 
honor.  ...  I  know  that  great  voices  are 
comforting  you;  that  Death  itself  is  like 
a  mighty  voice  of  God,  speaking  a  new 
majestic  word;  telling  of  peace  and  joy 
yet  to  be :  deep  answering  to  deep,  and  so 
I  must  be  content  with  silence. 

77  Mt.  Vernon  Street,   May  17,  1896. 

In  a  deeper  place,  a  place  where  weak- 
ness cannot  enter,  I  do  indeed  believe  with 
my  whole  heart  that  those  beloved  and 
majestic  ones  whose  "spirits  have  passed 
beyond  this  earth's  control"  are  near  our 

[  '^i  ] 


LETTERS 

spirits,  enter  into  our  yearning  hearts, 
comfort,  sustain  and  •  teach  us.  .  .  .  As 
"the  Spirit  witnesseth  with  our  Spirit," 
in  like  manner  do  those  just  ones  made 
perfect  take  on  the  freer  conditions  of 
spiritual  life  and  minister,  we  cannot  know 
how  largely,  to  the  necessities  of  those  they 
love.  If,  I  say  to  myself,  I  can  only  be 
strong  enough  to  live  in  the  light  in  which 
one  believes;  to  press  upward  unfalter- 
ingly. 

December  26. 

I  can  only  thank  you,  and  ask  for  bless- 
ings for  you  and  yours  in  these  Christmas 
days.  Association  seems  to  make  the  feasts 
sometimes  too  hard  to  bear;  but  one  goes 
deeper  and  then  peace  flows  in  again.  But 
I  wish  I  could  come  and  put  my  hand  in 
yours,  knowing  of  the  long  reiterated  pain 
you  have  had  to  bear.  And  it  is  because 
of  this  that  more  than  ever  now  I  ask  for 
you  the  blessing  of  Peace. 
[  122  ] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

On  the  train  for  Baltimore, 
June  I,  1897. 

Dear,  and  dear  Friend, — As  you 
perceive  I  am  executing  a  familiar  act  and 
am  on  my  way  to  my  little  Mary's  wedding, 
having  at  this  moment  just  emerged  from 
the  night  and  Philadelphia  —  or  was  it  the 
night  of  Philadelphia  ?  —  and  now  moving 
swiftly  in  the  early  sunlight.  Since  your 
dear  letter  came  I  have  been  packed  with 
those  persistent  duties  which  attend  this 
time  of  year  plus  the  incidental  coming 
and  going  of  people  and  events,  and  the 
final  climax  yesterday  of  the  Dedication 
of  the  Shaw  monument,  which  in  our  lit- 
tle town  was  the  occasion  for  a  vast  inter- 
est and  the  display  of  more  pure  feeling 
than  often  happens.  On  Sunday  Henry 
Higginson  gave  a  familiar  talk  to  the  stu- 
dents at  Memorial  Hall  concerning  Shaw, 
his  character,  his  opportunity ;  a  brave 
discourse,  full  of  simplicity  and  rugged 
[  123  ] 


LETTERS 

eloquence.  And  as  I  sat  looking  at  the 
stage  there  in  the  College  theatre,  I  saw 
and  shall  forever  see  beloved  forms,  and 

do  you  remember pouring  from  the 

pitcher  into  the  silver  cup  ?  These  pre- 
sences remain,  and  sanctify  all  that  shall 
come  after. 

At  the  dedication  yesterday,  walked  the 
survivors  of  the  54th  Massachusetts  Col- 
ored, with  their  tattered  battle  flag,  and 
later,  in  the  Music  Hall,  after  the  oration 
by  William  James,  came  one  by  Booker 
Washington  —  a  wonderful  speech  which 
lifted  up  the  hearts  of  all  who  heard  him. 
And  the  veil  was  lifted  from  the  monu- 
ment, and  now  the  memory  of  Shaw  and 
of  the  cause  of  freedom  are  set  in  imper- 
ishable form. 

October  i,  1897.    Old  Place. 

I  have  little  to  tell  you  of  any  moment, 
the  little  world  of  people  and  things  moves 
on,  and  I  move  with  it,  yet  seem  somehow 
[  124  3 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

strangely  remote;  dreaming  dreams,  work- 
ing and  wondering  over  the  yet  undiscov- 
ered secrets  of  life.  But  this  long,  this 
endless  summer  has  been  a  wonderful  one 
to  me,  in  proving  the  depth  and  riches  of 
the  great  realities  of  life  ;  sources  of  hope 
and  faith,  of  consolation,  and  joy  make 
themselves  felt,  and  that  which  St.  Paul 
calls  "  the  power  of  our  endless  life  "  seems 
newly  understood;  as  one  goes  through 
experience  after  experience,  and  loses  one's 
self  only  to  find  it  again,  truly  the  same 
but  changed. 

July  14,  1903.  Old  Place. 

I  have  the  summer  well  packed  with 
dreams ;  but  you  know  how  little  that  may 
come  to  mean.  However  it  is  recorded 
that  they  have  saved  the  world ! 


[125] 


LETTERS 
TO  MRS.  HENRY  PARKMAN 

May  26,  1900. 

It  is  the  faith  of  a  friend  that  makes  such 
a  bulwark  of  consolation.  One  knows  one's 
failures  and  one's  poverty  and  would  rather 
that  one's  friends  knew  them  too ;  but  if 
they  will  only  through  the  long  conflict 
believe  in  you  still,  that  forever  sustains 
and  heartens  ;  is  a  point  de  rep  aire  for  which 
one  is  so  grateful,  enables  one  to  keep  faith 
in  one's  self.  ...  I  feel  fortified  at  know- 
ing that  you  also  believe  in  the  Dream, 
which  as  Richter  said  "shall  remain" 
when  we  truly  awaken,  only  the  sleep  of 
weakness  and  ignorance  and  self-remem- 
brance shall  have  passed  away. 

June  20,  1900. 

All  the  stars  are  shining  in  this  quiet 
town  and  peace  lies  like  a  mantle  over  the 
[  X26  ] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

hill.  The  rivers  which  gird  in  South  Ber- 
wick have  seven  falls  within  a  mile,  and  a 
sound  like  that  of  some  mysterious  sea 
comes  on  the  air  ;  and  after  you  know, 
you  always,  a  little,  hear  it,  and  there  are 
many  things  here  which  give  a  sort  of 
mystic  quality  to  this  old  simple  New 
England  village. 

July  3,  1900. 

I  am  now  in  the  grip  of  knowing  that 
whatever  is  to  be  done  must  be  done  be- 
fore July  nth,  and  so  I  am  engaged  with 
the  making  a  sort  of  block-puzzle  of  men 
and  things  which  must  be  fitted  together 
before  I  take  ship.  ...  I  perceive,  in 
short,  that  it  is  a  terrible  piece  of  work  to 
have  what  is  called  a  vacation.  But  I  per- 
ceive also  that  somewhere  in  the  so-called 
vacation  there  is  a  little  concrete  piece  of 
clear,  sheer,  reality,  some  point  of  beauty 
which  will  speak  to  me,  and  never  cease 
[  127  ] 


LETTERS 

speaking.  You  will  understand ;  and  after 
all,  these  are  the  gifts  which  leaven  the 
whole  air  and  temper  of  one's  existence. 

July  5,  1900. 

Going  away  for  five  weeks  is  tantamount 
to  preparing  for  death ;  and  every  corner 
must  be  visited,  ticketed,  docketed  in  this 
complex  scheme  by  means  of  which  I 
conduct  that  remote  thing  we  call  our  life. 

8.  8.  Columbia,  July  16,  1900. 

My  years  I  think  are  counting  in  vari- 
ous ways  in  reducing  certain  "  dangerous 
tendencies"  and  I  don't  think  it  is  owing 
only  to  a  good  sea  that  I  have  shown  un- 
usual self-control !  for  after  the  first  day 
I  plucked  myself  up  and  have  been,  not 
a  free  man,  but  with  fetters  possible  to 
conceal.  The  Ship's  Company  is,  in  the 
main,  made  up  of  those  who  *' neither  give 
nor   take,"  Cook's   Companies,  bands   of 

[  128] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

Teutons,  etc.,  etc.,  with  a  few  canonical 
travellers,  and  pleasant  people  in  search 
of  health ;  with  whom  (at  those  long 
hours  when  dinner  and  music  and  chat- 
tering are  done),  I  exchange  amiable  com- 
modities. For  the  rest,  I  rally  on  some 
interior  realizations. 

London,  July  21,  1900. 

All  is  going  as  planned ;  London  empty, 
almost,  of  one's  friends;  but  fuller  than 
ever  of  people,  and  profoundly  full  of  in- 
timations, of  wonder,  of  dreams.  The  heat 
excessive,  till  late  last  night ;  perhaps  I  can 
indicate  this  in  no  way  more  impressively 
than  by  telling  you  that  the  mighty 
among  Coachmen  and  Footmen  in  Hyde 
Park  wore  straw  hats !  This  sight  really 
unnerved  me :  it  seemed  the  first  concession 
of  a  really  great  Nation.  .  .  .  To-day  I 
saw  the  Academy  pictures,  and  am  full  of 
gloom;  so  much  painting,  so  little  Art. 
[  129  ] 


LETTERS 

Great  painting  in  Sargent's  group,  but  so 
far  as  Art  lies  in  composition,  in  feeling,  in 
the  outward  and  visible  form  of  inward  and 
spiritual  grace,  one  is  left  empty  before 
this  great  canvas. 

France,  July  28,  1900. 

A  word  with  you  just  as  I  come  upon 
my  native  soil  and  feel  the  strange  vital 
breath  of  her  air  upon  my  cheek.  .  .  . 
Spite  of  the  emptiness  of  London,  and 
only  proposing  to  do  there  the  obvious 
things,  I  have  had  some  acute  moments; 
such  as  going  down  to  Mrs.  Humphry 
Ward's  for  a  season  of  the  most  ideal  in- 
tercourse in  the  old  garden,  along  the 
Lime-tree  walk,  and  last  a  talk  with  her 
alone  under  immemorial  beeches.   .   .   . 

Now,  my  plan  is  simple,  I  can  assure 

you!  Two  days  for  the  Exposition,  then 

"steer  due  North"  for  Chartres.  ...  I 

desire  to  have  a  Huysmannian  day  there, 

[  130  ] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

beginning  with  dawn  and  ending  with  sun- 
set. ...  I  shall  go  and  there  anoint  my 
soul  and  see  the  sunlight  enter  at  every 
angle  through  those  divine  windows. 

August  5,  1900. 

Paris!  happily  for  you  I  shall  not  tell 
you  in  pencil,  more  than  the  great  fact 
that  I  have  found  what  I  came  for,  .  .  . 
the  sight  in  the  Exposition  of  the  Retro- 
spectif  with,  its  beautiful  collection;  objects 
of  the  great  12th,  and  lovely  15th,  centu- 
ries; and  then  a  few  modern  pictures. 

And  to  have  one  such  day  as  I  spent  in 
Chartres,  from  the  morning  till  seven 
o'clock,  when  the  setting  sun  threw  a 
rainbow  all  around  the  left  clerestory ! 

September  11,  1900. 

The  way  the  marshes  looked  with  the 
colour  of  all  the  summer  in  them,  and  an 
autumn  sun  striking  its  potent  slant  across 
C  13'  ] 


LETTERS 

them,  was  too  much  for  me,  and  I  am  only 
waiting  now  for  the  night  to  be  over  that 
I  may  try  to  recover  some  shred  of  the 
"fine,  careless  rapture"  that  was  in  the 
sight.  I  am,  alas !  I  might  remark,  in  a 
perfect  maelstrom  of  affairs;  large,  small, 
oblate  spheroids  in  shape,  like  lead  for 
weight.  The  only  thing  that  could  be 
worse,  I  suppose,  would  be  not  having 
them  to  do,  by  which  grim  philosophy 
one  keeps  a  head  above  the  circumambi- 
ent wave!  One  thing  this  week  is  very 
dear;  my  Trinity  Class  comes  down,  as 
many  as  are  free,  to  the  Baptist  Class 
Annual  Fair,  and  attendant  splendors  shine 
upon  the  deed.  At  the  breakfast  table  I 
am  actively  composing  sofa-pillows  and 
other  nostrums  for  a  cold  world,  while  my 
mind  has  gone  on  a  sort  of  vacation;  and 
will  not  return,  I  think,  till  the  first  Mon- 
day in  Heaven.  The  comfort  is,  that  no  one 
notices  but  one's  self! 

C  132  ] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

September  24,  1900.    On  the  train. 

It  does  sometimes  seem  as  if  the  mental 
ray  were  in  danger  of  deflection  and  I 
might  be  found  recommending  that  time- 
tables be  studied  in  the  Public  Schools ; 
or  other  lucubrations  of  a  diseased  and 
over-wrought  fancy.  ...  I  shall  soon  make 
further  report  of  all  the  things  I  am  not 
doing,  in  order  to  compass  these  duties 
entailed  by  having  a  practical  bee  in  my 
bonnet. 

October  20,  1900. 

The  day  when  I  have  looked  forth,  has 
been  all  deep  azure  and  gold  and  garnet, 
and  the  night  is  like  a  purple  cup,  oh,  won- 
derful !  So  you  see  there  *s  a  window  in 
this  day's  house  of  life,  which  is  the  great 
point. 

November  3,  1900. 

The  little  adorable  jessamine  went  in  and 
out  with  me  to-day,  and  now  the  second 
[  ^33  ] 


LETTERS 

piece  sits  here  very  close,  and  looks  forth 
with  that  mild  sweet  eye,  and  is  like  some 
message  from  a  world  not  far  perhaps,  but 
invisible  except  for  signs  and  tokens  and 
the  commerce  of  hope  and  faith. 

Christmas  Eve,  1900.   New  York. 

This  is  the  hour  in  which  all  your  hearts 
are  lifted  up  in  grief  and  memory  and  hope. 
I  am  there  with  you ;  and  this  day  takes 
its  place  with  those  sacramental  hours  in 
which  love  and  sorrow  have  their  way,  and 
the  tenderness  of  which  remain  with  us, 
though  we  go  back  into  the  strenuous  cur- 
rent again  to-morrow.  .  .  .  Perhaps  you 
will  feel  as  I  do,  that  the  peace  of  Christ- 
mas in  the  air,  in  the  sky,  in  this  rushing 
company  everywhere,  is  more  wonderful 
than  it  ever  was  before.  I  hope  the  sense 
of  it  will  come  down  to-night  "as  the  dew 
on  a  fleece  of  wool,''  and  comfort  all  sad 
hearts  with  this  same  blessing  of  peace. 

[134] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

August  1 6,  1 90 1. 

The  mail  this  morning,  my  Frances, 
brought  me  a  letter  which  was  very  dear, 
and  such  a  good  piece  of  literature,  if  I  may 
be  allowed  thus  to  speak  critically  of  a  work 
of  the  affections.  Yet  the  heart  is  the 
only  artist  in  the  last  analysis,  so  I  may 
have  laid  a  flower  on  the  right  shrine  after 
all.  .  .  .  What  a  return  for  your  letter  from 
the  zone  of  calm  and  harmonious  inter- 
change, as  the  happy  gods  passed  gracious 
goblets  from  hand  to  hand.  I  have  a  letter 
from  Mrs.  Lawrence  as  dear  and  as  wise 
as  the  wisdom  of  little  children.  She  is  a 
woman  of  the  world  with  a  child's  heart. 

August  27,  1 90 1. 

The  message  concerning  Mrs.  Dorr 
gives  me  a  sad  little  pang,  for  I  see  how 
little  can  be  done,  and  yet  that  vital  spirit 
is  so  cabined  by  the  persistent  flesh.  Ah 
well,  I  try  to  remember  that  she  may  be 
[  '35] 


LETTERS 

free  from  suffering  in  any  such  sense  as 
this,  and  only  waiting  for  the  new  freedom 
under  a  new  sky. 

September  4,  1 90 1 . 

I  am  pursuing  my  way  to  Old  Place 

under  the  escort  of and  an  interesting 

young  President  of  a  College  in  Washing- 
ton (the  State),  who  has  much  to  tell,  and 
in  talking  gives  one  a  great  sense  of  that 
amazing  West,  fecund,  vast,  waiting  to  be 
born  again,  but  in  its  present  condition  ro- 
bust, amazing. 

On  the  Memorial  Services  for  President  McKinley. 

September  20,  1901.   Old  Place. 

Yesterday  was  a  day  which  I  can't  help 
believing  showed  growth  in  many  direc- 
tions in  our  country ;  and  made  more  than 
ever  evident  what  Death  is  as  a  witness  to 
Life.  For  Death,  like  the  soul  of  man, 
"looks  before  and  after"  and  judges. 
There  was  a  dear  little  mass  of  people  at 

[  136] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

the  Baptist  Church,  and  chance  to  say  a 
supremely  great  word.  No  one  said  it,  but 
I  think  it  got  spoken  just  the  same  in  the 
silent  chambers  of  each  heart. 

October,  1901. 

In  this  summer  I  have  faced  a  good 
many  things  and  felt  a  new  responsibility, 
toward  which  I  must  steadily  set  myself. 
This  recognition  has,  I  think,  made  every- 
thing which  was  dear,  dearer;  but  it  has 
made  me  feel  how  I  must  "straighten  my- 
self to  the  self-same  mark,''  not  hasting, 
not  resting;  working,  loving. 

But  these  are  words,  and  we  will  wait. 

Christmas  Day,  1901.  Philadelphia. 

In  general  this  is  a  time  when  I  am 
leading  the  life  of  a  serious  butterfly  going 
from  friend  to  friend,  yet  not  wholly  un- 
aware of  the  moral  world  in  which  we  all 
live. 

[  137  ] 


LETTERS 

March  19,  1902.   On  Shipboard. 

This  entity  Me  has  wholly  yielded  to 
this  environment  the  ship.  I  sleep  like  a 
dormouse,  I  exchange  civilities,  I  placidly 
fill  my  place  at  the  dinner-table,  I  cast  a 
languid  eye  through  the  port-hole.  I  sleep 
again !  What  could  you  and  that  Domi- 
neering Doctor  ask  more? 

One  thing  really  was  too  much.  I 
thought  The  Valley  of  Decision  had  been 
put  with  two  or  three  things  into  a  fat 
bundle  which  I  instructed  Herman  to 
take  with  the  last  things.  When  I  opened 
it  to-day  fancy  my  feelings  at  finding  a  neat 
set  of  Boswell's  Johnson  which  I  had 
bought  for  a  future  Christmas  present! 

Good  Friday,  1902.   London. 

I  found  also  your  dear  telegram  and 
letter !  That  was  a  good  beginning  and 
I  bless  you  for  such  a  joyful  moment,  only, 
darling,  you  must  not  find  my  going  so 

C  138  ] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

real,  I  don*t  really  go  very  far  from  those 
I  love, —  let  this  letter  bear  w^itness  !  — 
and  that  is  the  way  the  real  keeps  so  ahead 
of  the  actual,  as  you  w^ill  feel  more  and 
more  the  longer  you  continue  on  this 
very  interesting  and  informing  road  called 
life.  ... 

Then  I  went  to  the  Abbey,  for  a  beau- 
tiful little  service ;  and  then  giving  myself 
up  to  that  wonderful  atmosphere,  where  all 
souls  and  many  saints  seem  more  real  than 
those  who  walk  among  their  monuments, 
I  wandered,  I  cannot  tell  how  long,  with 
Memory.  After  all  the  stones  of  splendor 
and  the  glory  of  mortal  life,  one  comes 
back  to  the  quietest  corner  of  all,  with  the 
early  poets ;  where  two  little  garlands  keep 
Spenser's  sweetest  singing  green,  and  one 
looks  upon  the  marble  bust  of  Michael 
Drayton,  with  tiny  fillet  of  laurel,  which 
one  sonnet  would  have  made  immortal.  It 
is  a  matchless  place ;  and  in  it  one  finds  a 
[  139  ] 


LETTERS 

beautiful  "peace  in  believing."  This,  a 
very  restful  day,  after  the  slight  agitations 
of  the  steamer's  affairs  before  and  after 
landing;  and  I  am  feeling  what  perhaps  a 
critical  friend  would  call  the  stupidities  of 
repose !  But  it  all  means  something  to  the 
physical  man,  and  I  have  walked  to-day 
twice  as  far  as  I  have  walked  for  a  year 
and  am  quite  set  up  notwithstanding. 

En  route  for  Paris. 
Easter  Monday,  March  31,  1902. 

I  laid  a  little  bunch  of  your  lilacs  at  the 
feet  of  Gordon,  where  he  lies  so  peacefully 
at  St.  Paul's,  and  it  was  there  I  had  my 
Easter  service,  just  when  (in  point  of  the 
day  if  not  of  the  hour)  my  beloved  Class 
was  at  Trinity.  I  looked  out  at  the  Thames 
with  an  increasing  joy,  and  if  you  could 
know  the  things  the  tide  adjusts  just  be- 
fore the  windows  of  the  Hotel  Cecil.  .  .  . 
Question: — shall  I  ever  be  thought  well 
again  by  those  who  decide  these  august 
.  [  140  ] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

questions  ?  I  must  hurry  and  defy  their  sen- 
tence ! 

April,  1902.  Paris. 

Everything  is  packed  for  Madrid  .  .  . 
and  I  am  off  at  noon  to-morrow  .  .  .  hav- 
ing been  introduced  to  a  phrase  book  by 

which  promises  to  supply  one  with 

enough  words  to  get  what  one  wants.  I 
never  had  enough  words  yet  in  English  to 
get  what  I  wanted. 

April  12,  1902.   Madrid. 

It  is  the  old  story  here;  I  am,  I  have 
been  ever  since  Clemence  saw  me  off  in  the 
train  de  luxe^  overwhelmed  with  surprises. 
Most  of  all  was  I  overcome  by  the  great 
drama  of  Spain  itself  as  I  came  hither, 
such  grandiose  splendor,  such  tragedy. 
And  the  Gallery  is  far  beyond  my  dreams ; 
one  picture  in  it  —  the  great  Velasquez  — 
has  the  whole  art  of  painting  in  it,  and  I 
mean  to  do  little  else  except  to  sit  in  front 
[  HI  ] 


LETTERS 

of  it  each  day,  as  long  as  that  curious  con- 
densed cold  will  allow.  Then  the  Titians 
are  beyond  any  gallery's  possession  to  me, 
the  portrait  of  Charles  Fifth  a  sumnium 
bonum, 

April  1 8,  1902. 
On  the  Train  to  Paris. 

Burgos  is  a  charming  little  old  piece 
of  picture,  and  as  Sargent  told  me  the 
Cathedral  is  rich  and  encrusted  with  colour. 
Gold  has  been  so  much  employed  in  the 
great  chapel  memorials,  built  up  in  high 
resonant  decoration,  and  forming  a  lovely 
harmony  with  the  enriched  white  of  the 
stone  columns  and  traceries,  everywhere 
so  elaborate. 

April  29,  1902.   Paris. 

It  has  meant  a  good  deal  to  me  to  see 

the  American  artists  .  .  .  and  I  have  the 

old  longing  to  be  in  some  way  ready  for 

the  exhibition  here,  before  I  quit  this  vale. 

[  142  ] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

There  is  something  in  it  which  makes  the 
year's  record,  and  that  is  a  point  in  one's 
mind. 

May  12,  1902.    London. 

We  had  an  interesting  call  from  Mr. 
Lecky  (who,  as  Mr.  Choate  says,  "  looks 
so  exactly  like  his  caricatures ''),  and  ended 
with  tea  later  in  Mrs.  Ritchie's  parlor,  and 
all  Thackeray's  drawings  and  paintings  in 
our  hands  to  wonder  over  and  to  love.  That 
was  one  of  the  most  interesting  things  I 
ever  did. 

May  16,  1902.   London. 

I  think  I  never  knew  anything  so  naive, 
so  altogether  infantile,  as  this  England  ! 
The  surface  of  people  may  be  proud,  or 
distinguished,  or  learned,  or  fashionable; 
but  after  they  have  accepted  you  and  asked 
you  to  share  their  hearthstone,  they  seem 
to  become  as  little  children,  and  lead  you 
to  their  fireside  and  proceed  to  play  with 
their  small  toys  to  amuse  you,  just  as  in 

[  143] 


LETTERS 

the  nursery  life  we  have  done  it  too.  Wait 
till  I  some  day  tell  you  of  a  luncheon 
at  the  Tennants'.  Sir  Henry  Stanley,  of 
course,  was  there,  and  such  men  as  Bryce 
and  Sir  Alfred  Lyall ;  much  high  discourse 
was  held,  but  all  in  a  way  still  so  simple, 
so  in  the  world's  youth,  that  it  makes  a 
middle-aged  American  feel  like  a  time- 
worn  sophist  looking  at  the  Garden  of 
Eden.  Then  again  it  is  so  strange  to  be  so 
near  all  the  things  one  is  looking  out  for. 
.  .  .  Everything  is  going  on  and  you  can 
have  a  sight  of  it  or  a  turn  at  it  if  you  like. 
And  another  thing  is  that  it  makes  affairs 
and  social  life  have  a  sort  of  inter-relation 
which  is  quite  amazing  and  very  econom- 
ical. Of  course  this  is  only  a  swift  and  su- 
perficial description.  ...  I  have  wandered 
a  good  deal  among  the  old  pictures  since 
I  wrote,  and  have  seen  the  Sargents  again 
and  salted  them  down  in  my  critical  pre- 
serves, as  it  were. 

[  H4  ] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

May  25,  1902.   London. 

Almost  every  Englisher  whom  I  meet 
says  the  Americans  are  so  unconscious  ! 
Is  n't  that  amazing  ?  And  it  is  they,  it 
seems,  who  have  been  so  ridden  by  their 
consciousness  so  long.  A  caged  lion,  after 
all.  .  .  .  We  are  about  to  go  to  see  the 
school  for  decoration,  —  should  I  say  the 
first  finger  I  have  lifted  in  any  serious  direc- 
tion ?  I  am  appalled  at  my  powers  for  "  lay- 
ing off"  the  garment  of  endeavor. 

May  30,  1902.   London. 

Roger  Merriman  had  arranged  a  de- 
lectable day  at  Oxford,  with  a  luncheon  of 
Dons  and  youths  in  charming  alternation ; 
and  oh,  such  enormous  beauty  round  and 
about.  I  had  such  a  wave  of  academic  pas- 
sion flood  over  me  that  I  almost  perished ! 
That  little  Sophocles  which  was  in  the 
dead  Shelley's  hand  is  there,  and  our  old 
Edward  Silsbee's  portrait  hangs  not  far 
[  HS  ] 


LETTERS 

from  the  Shelley  guitar ;  his  gift.  And 
now  Henry  James  is  in  town  and  looks  in. 
He  dined  with  us  one  night  and  was  full 
of  subtle  criticism  and  amusing  subterfuge. 
Altogether  he  presents  the  most  acute  bits 
of  criticism  in  the  most  unexpected  way  to 
himself  as  well  as  to  everybody  else. 

August  4,  1902.   Old  Place. 

Well,  well,  it's  a  very  strange  little 
round  ball  we  live  on;  and  I  find  new 
clues  to  my  philosophy  every  minute  or 
two.  Pr'aps  there  are  more  clues  than 
philosophy,  now  I  think  of  it!  Tell  Pene- 
lope that  Old  Ladies  always  answer  the 
Third  letter.  They  love  them  all  and  answer 
the  Third.  This  is  good  for  ready  writers 
to  understand. 

August  29,  1902.   On  the  train. 

The  visit  was  full  of  rest  and  peace,  so 
I  have  a  feeling  of  great  refreshment  and 

[  146  ] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

renewal,  and  desire  to  be  looked  upon  as 
a  Gentle  Giantess  who  may  be  discerned 
with  Mr.  Low's  telescope  bounding  over 
the  mountains  and  taking  long  strides  in 
the  meadows  almost  any  time !  You  know 
really,  in  this  long  week,  I  have  had  a 
turn  at  Nature  and  Human  Nature  of 
extraordinary  quality,  and  feel  with  that 
fatuous  lady  of  old  that  "the  best  is  good 
enough  for  me,**  and  that  these  pleasures 
and  perfumes  will  stay  long  with  me. 

August  31,  1902.   Old  Place. 

I  fear  I  yielded  too  early  to  the  charm 
of  the  dolce  far  niente  where  young-eyed 
cherubim  and  college  presidents  filled  the 
choirs,  and  dear  and  able  friends  walked 
in  companies  hither  and  yon.  .  .  .  You 
may  be  pleased  to  know  that  since  my 
return  four  persons  have  asked;  no,  five; 
if  I  will  give  them  a  day  quite  alone ^  and  I 
am  that  evil  that  I  had  thought  of  asking 

[  147] 


LETTERS 

them  all  at  the  same  time !  So  you  see  I 
am  falling  from  grace. 

September  26,  1902.  Studio. 

I  write  here  in  that  Desolation  which 
precedes  cleanliness,  and  control  my  spirit 
as  best  I  can.  ...  It 's  the  "Fall  of  the 
Year"  and  things  tumble  about  one's  ears 
with  every  mail.  I  omit  everything  I  can, 
believe  me,  and  I  shall  apply  all  my 
knowledge  to  perfecting  a  scheme  for  the 
avoidance  of  pretty  much  everything.  .  .  . 
I  only  write  the  most  shabby  letters  now- 
adays to  a  friend,  reserving  all  my  bows 
and  perfumed  gloves  for  my  moderate 
enemies. 

October  25,  1902. 

I  have  been  taken  to  drive  in  a  close 
carriage  like  a  delicate  doll ;  but  nothing 
could  keep  nature  out  and  the  sights  in 
the  generous  country  are  supremely  fine. 

[  148  ] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

On  Train  approaching  Portland. 
March  30,  1903. 

The  country  is  awfully  beautiful,  even 
now,  which  is  a  period  of  least  quality 
as  a  rule,  abandoned  by  Winter  and  un- 
anointed  by  Spring.  I  have  looked  at  it 
lazily  and  thought  of  my  foreign  letters ; 
but  such  solitary  leisure  is  almost  too  pre- 
cious to  relinquish  at  any  demand  of  the 
conscientious  scribe  ;  (I  have  just  seen  the 
first  vestige  left  of  snow,  little  white 
patches  on  the  shady  sides  of  great  pines 
as  if  a  tablecloth  were  laid  for  picnic 
purposes). 

July  29,  1903.   Old  Place. 

I  am  reading  the  great  six  volumes  of 
Byron's  letters;  one  long  revelation  of  na- 
ture, brilliant,  varied,  faceted  like  a  dia- 
mond, tragic  almost  to  mania,  the  height 
without  the  depth  of  passion.  It  all  cuts 
into  one  like  so  many  knives  of  tempered 
steel. 

[  H9  ] 


LETTERS 

October  i6,  1903. 
Old  Place,  after  hearing  Beethoven's  Mass. 

Such  moments  as  those  of  last  night  are 
indeed  moments  of  true  reality;  when 
"  the  things  which  are  not  seen ''  make 
themselves  known  to  us  and  we  stand  face 
to  face  with  what  we  believe.  You  re- 
member Arnold's  Buried  Life^  where  "a 
bolt  is  shot  back  somewhere  in  our  breast/' 
and  the  ineffable  trust  of  our  being  makes 
itself  known  ? 

All  this  was  borne  in  upon  the  soul  last 
night,  as  by  the  tongue  of  angels  ;  but  less 
mighty  moments  will  repeat  the  song  if 
the  ear  is  open.  .  .  . 


[ijo] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 
TO  MAJOR   HENRY  L.  HIGGINSON 

November  19,  1897. 

When  I  returned  from  the  Soldiers* 
Field  last  Saturday  (I  could  not  resist  when 
a  Freshman  invited  me  to  go  with  him !),  I 
wanted  to  write  to  you  and  say  something 
of  all  it  made  me  feel  to  see  that  great 
lovely  plain,  bordered  by  the  sunset  and 
other  irreclaimable  gifts  of  the  sky  and 
landscape,  and  set  forever  there  in  memory 
of  valor  and  of  love.  And  giving  it  straight 
from  your  hand  into  Harvard's  hand  makes 
the  giver  go  with  the  gift,  as  no  later  be- 
quest can  do.  I  think  sometimes  in  chilly 
days  of  what  a  fire  you  have  there  kindled. 


[151] 


LETTERS 
TO   J.  TEMPLEMAN  COOLIDGE 

February  24,  1900.    After  a  Death. 

Once  more  indeed  Death  is  the  great 
witness  to  its  own  mystery,  and  speaks  of 
Life  as  nothing  else  can;  deep  answering 
to  deep.  So  one  dares  to  believe  that  a 
larger  consecration  may  come  to  those 
who  have  gone  with  you  and  the  children 
through  these  days  of  grief;  and  on  into 
the  "larger  hope.'' 

July  7,  1900.    On  sailing  for  Europe. 

I  send  to  you  and  all  those  dear  children 
my  love  and  farewell.  I  hope  the  summer 
will  make  many  happy  days  for  you  all; 
with  love  and  memory  and  nature,  all 
making  their  good  gifts;  and  I  need  not 
say  how  much  I  have  my  friends  with  me 
wherever  I  may  be. 

[  152  ] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

August    1 6,    1900.    S.  S.   FURST  BiSMARK. 

I  had  a  chance  to  get  a  swift  visit  to 
Paris  where,  by  choosing  the  best  and 
wholly  ignoring  lesser  joys,  I  contrived 
to  do  quite  a  wonderful  deal,  including 
some  of  the  joys  of  friendship,  such  as 

lunching  with   and   dining  with  a 

few  friends  who  happened  to  be  in  the 
same  views  of  exploration  and  enjoyment. 
I  found  the  Retrospectif  one  of  the 
choicest  gifts,  like  a  pilgrimage  from 
shrine  to  shrine,  and  full  of  such  distin- 
guished and  exquisite  intimations;  and 
that,  together  with  a  few  best  French 
paintings,  constituted  the  real  Exposition 
for  me.  The  modern  glass  was  nil,  I  could 
have  wept  at  the  absence  of  even  the  sim- 
plest good  things.  And  so  I  all  the  more 
willingly  left  the  great  show  for  the  quiet 
and  permanent  joys  of  the  Cathedrals, 
never  so  great  to  me  as  now. 

Paris  too  suffered  a  little  to  my  eye  and 

[  153  ] 


LETTERS 

to  my  mind,  I  think,  from  having  just  left 
London  with  its  tragedy,  its  splendor,  its 
enormous  self-possession.  After  the  match- 
less dignity  of  the  Lion  and  the  Unicorn, 
the  Lilies  of  France  seemed  like  deserted 
or  neglected  shrines. 

But  when  I  spent  one  long  day  in 
Chartres  I  confess  that  even  London 
melted  like  wax  before  such  pure  and  su- 
preme beauty. 

July,  1902.   S.  S.  Saxonia. 

The  sojourn  in  London  has  been  to  me 
full  of  a  unique  pleasure,  for  though  I  have 
only  done  very  quiet  things,  and  was,  be- 
sides, obeying  orders,  and  really  loafing, 
the  strange  pageant  of  London  has  not 
passed  by  in  vain. 

For  nearly  seven  weeks  I  have  sat  and 
looked  out  into  Berkeley  Square,  —  itself 
a  little  web  of  history,  —  and  have  felt  as 
if  a  dark  passionate  river  of  human  life, 

[  1543 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

with  the  bright  flowers  of  the  season  on 
its  breast,  went  by. 

London  too  is  so  full  of  all  the  things ; 
for  social  life  and  politics  and  literature, 
all  seem  fused  into  one  round  ball  of  inter- 
est and  of  comparison.  For  I  am  quite  sure 
that  nowhere  does  one  get  as  in  London 
such  constant  fusion  of  all  these  diflferent 
elements. 

March  25,  1904. 

You  sent  me  those  lovely  white  flowers 
which  are  still  shining  and  still  giving  me 
pleasure.  Thank  you  for  these  and  for 
many  things  which  you  have  meant  to  me 
this  Winter,  though  meeting  has  been  rare, 
and  I  so  incompetent !  But  the  real  things 
do  not  depend  on  "How  much''  or 
"What;'*  but  on  the  deepened  under- 
standings and  sympathies  by  which  the 
relations  of  friendship  are  made  manifest 
—  and  my  love  and  gratitude  are  always 
yours. 

[  155] 


LETTERS 
TO    MISS   ELIZABETH    FRANKLIN 

MEMBER    OF    THE    BIBLE    CLASS 

June  14,  1890.   Beverly  Farms. 

Dear  Friend, —  I  went  to  see  your  dear 
father  yesterday  just  as  I  was  moving  out 
of  town,  and  was  so  thankful  to  see  him, 
but  fear  he  is  indeed  very  ilL  I  depend 
upon  your  writing  to  me  to  let  me  know 
how  it  is  with  him  to-day ;  for  I  hope  he 
may  rally  with  so  much  care  and  nursing. 
You  will  know  without  my  words  how 
much  I  am  thinking  of  you ;  and  wishing 
that  however  this  present  illness  may  turn, 
you  may  feel  God  very  near  and  His  com- 
fort all  about  you. 

Easter,  1893. 

Dear  Friend, —  I  am  afraid  you  were 
pretty  tired  to-day,  and  I  want  to  send  you 
my  love  to-night.  It  is  good  to  have  Easter 
come  and  remind  us  of  that  which  is  to  be. 
J  ust  now  we  are  in  need  of  an  ample  horizon. 

[  156] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

October,  1893.   Chicago. 

It's  only  because  of  the  great  stress  of 
work  I  have  had  in  hand  that  I  have  not 
written,  and  your  letter  which  has  followed 
me  here  gives  me  a  pang  of  regret !  But 
you  see  how  it  is;  and  in  order  to  get  away 
my  correspondence  has  lapsed  quite  out  of 
sight.  But  then  you  know  that  I  remem- 
ber you,  do  you  not  ?  and  you  must  tell  your 
father  so !  You  see  I  am  really  here,  and 
I  can  only  mention  the  fact  now ;  and  not 
attempt  to  describe  to  you,  as  I  will  do 
some  day,  this  world  of  Love  and  Beauty. 
It  is  like  a  long,  lovely  dream  and  under- 
neath the  interest  of  seeing  so  much  that 
tells  the  story  of  human  endeavor  and  hu- 
man experience.  If  only  I  could  have 
brought  the  whole  dear  class  with  me ! 
I  can't  describe  to  you  how  I  want  you 
to  see  it.  But  of  all  we  will  speak  later. 
This  is  just  a  message  of  good  wishes  and 
hopes. 

[  157] 


LETTERS 

Munich,  August  24,  1894. 

If  you  knew  what  a  comfort  it  was 
to  me  in  the  midst  of  my  delightful  trip 
in  this  Old  World,  to  hear  of  you  and 
your  father  having  a  real  vacation  in 
the  New!  I  only  wish  I  could  know 
that  all  the  family  of  the  Bible  Class  was 
doing  the  same  thing,  and  I  hope  to  know 
later,  that  spite  of  the  heat,  it  has  been, 
indeed,  a  good  summer  for  my  dear 
friends. 

I  can't  tell  you  what  sights  I  have  seen 
in  this  brief  compass  ...  let  me  simply 
mention  that  I  have  during  the  last 
month  seen  eight  glorious  cathedrals  in 
France;  and  heard  music  at  Bayreuth, 
which  was  like  a  solemn  service  of  re- 
ligion, and  which  left  an  impression  on 
my  mind  I  can  never  forget.  One  goes 
there  like  a  pilgrim  to  a  shrine,  and  one 
finds  a  lovely,  hilly  country,  an  old  pic- 
turesque   town;    a    company   of    people 

[  158] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

gathered  for  this  one  purpose,  and  687 
persons  engaged  in  producing  the  works 
of  Wagner  with  a  fulness  of  beauty  quite 
inconceivable.  Ah  well,  it  is  all  an  experi- 
ence of  deep  interest;  I  am  learning  so 
much. 

Paris,  April  30,  1896. 

Soon,  if  all  is  well  I  shall  be  within 
easy  reach  again;  and  after  a  great  and 
rich  experience,  for  I  have  found  these 
majestic  cathedrals  speak  with  new  voices, 
and  are  greater  than  I  knew.  I  have  gone 
steadily  on  my  way  and  am  amazed  to 
find  how  much  can  be  done  in  a  little 
time,  if  one  only  sets  one's  self  squarely 
to  the  task.  And  to-night,  do  you  know 
what  happened  to  me  to-night?  The  Class 
sent  me  a  great  bunch  of  French  roses ! 
Ah,  what  a  surprise  and  happiness  it  was, 
and  how  I  thank  you  one  and  all  from  my 
heart.  Tell  your  father  I  send  him  a  special 

[  159] 


LETTERS 

greeting,  and  here  is  a  rose-leaf  in  love  and 
in  memory. 

August  1 8,  1896. 

I  read  your  letter  in  the  train  to , 

as  we  went  together  to  the  dinner  at  Ash- 
field,  so  you  see  it  formed  part  of  that  very 
sweet  and  pious  occasion,  in  which  I  felt 
the  beauty  of  feeling  which  is  bred  in  high- 
minded  people,  living  in  those  upper  cham- 
bers of  nature,  which  one  finds  now  and 
then  possible. 

July  1 1 . 

I  cannot  tell  you  how  it  made  me  feel 
to  get  your  letter,  and  hear  of  that  deep 
grief  which  had  fallen  upon  your  sister, 
and  through  her  on  you  all.  ...  I  have 
lived  so  long  now,  that  I  know  what  con- 
solations come  to  mothers  who  have  been 
blessed  with  children ;  for  they  cannot 
really  lose  them,  and  this  truth  makes 
C  160  ] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

itself  felt.  ...  I  write  in  the  train;  as 
you  see,  the  only  place  often  where  I  have 
a  moment  to  myself,  this  summer  life  is  so 
complicated.  But  we  won't  mind  this; 
courage  and  forward ! 

July  28,  1898. 

When  I  got  the  windows  fairly  in  place 
and  college  days  over,  I  had  two  days  of 
my  own.  .  .  .  And  I  had  a  great  wish  to 
go  and  be  alone  and  still  with  that  great 
high  altar  of  Niagara.  So  this  I  did,  and 
for  forty-eight  hours  was  in  the  great  pre- 
sence of  that  Heart  of  Beauty,  which  was 
a  great  gift  and  refreshment  to  me.  Then 
I  returned  and  began  on  this  summer, 
which  has  unusual  cares  and  responsibil- 
ities in  it.  But  I  shall  try  to  live  some- 
where below,  where  I  am  at  peace. 


[  161] 


LETTERS 
TO   MISS  EVELYN   RICH 

November  25,  1892. 

Dear  Friend,  —  It  was  a  great  com- 
fort to  have  your  letter  for  that  first  Sun- 
day of  the  Class.  I  missed  you  more  than 
I  can  say,  and  so  shall  continue  to  do,  the 
only  comfort  being  in  the  thought  that 
you  are  where  you  will  "  knit  up  that  rav- 
elled sleeve"  of  pain  and  fatigue,  and  so 
come  back  to  us  presently.  The  Class  be- 
gan with  a  good  spirit  and  an  influx  of  new 
members  which  was  refreshing  and  meant 
well,  I  hope,  for  the  new  rector.  .  .  . 

As  you  will  suppose,  I  have  been  some- 
what in  the  thrall  of  my  "Exhibition." 
It's  worth  being,  for  the  first  three  min- 
utes of  it,  in  which  one  sees  one's  own 
work  as  if  it  were  some  one's  else,  and 
gets  revelations  accordingly  !  Afterwards 
one  feels  like  a  pelican  in  the  wilderness ; 
but  never  mind  that. 

[  162  ] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

After  Phillips  Brooks's  death. 

January  28,  1893. 

Dear  Friend,  —  You  will  have  known 
without  my  words  all  I  have  wished  to  say 
to  you  in  these  sacred  days.  We  have  all 
been  together  in  this  common  pain  and 
loss ;  and  perhaps  also  we  may  believe  have 
shared  some  of  the  peace  which  lies  at  the 
heart  of  the  great  friend  now  vanished  out 
of  our  sight,  for  it  does  seem  in  some  won- 
derful way  as  if  this  death  had  set  a  seal 
upon  his  life ;  and  one  felt  on  Thursday, 
when  love  and  devotion  found  such  ex- 
pression, as  if  in  no  other  way  could  the 
hearts  of  men  have  been  so  lifted  up.  But 
words  seem  very  weak  at  such  a  time  as 
this.  I  did  not  mean  to  write,  —  only  to 
stretch  a  hand  in  loving  fellowship,  and 
ask  God  to  bless  you  and  comfort  you. 


[  163] 


LETTERS 

1896. 

This  is  sad  news  indeed,  and  my  heart 
aches  to-night  for  you,  knowing  the  strange 
feeling  of  desolation,  the  mesh  of  tender 
pain.  Thank  Heaven  it  is  pain  without 
bitterness  which  has  in  it  the  seeds  of  com- 
fort, as  one  follows  the  dear  mother 
through  that  open  door  and  though  one 
must  come  back  to  this  life,  one  never 
comes  quite  back  again  I  think. 

I  long  to  see  you  and  know  how  you 
are,  and  I  send  you  warm  love  till  I  can 
find  you,  and  shall  have  you  constantly  in 
my  remembrance;  praying  that  God  will 
help  and  teach  and  comfort  you. 

1896. 

I  am  longing  to  know  that  Nature  has 
laid  a  hand  of  consolation  on  you;  and  that 
the  heaven  under  which  we  live,  deeper 
than  the  blue  ether,  has  been  full  of  intima- 
tions. I  do  not  know  that  we  shall  ever  be 

[  164] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

able  to  put  into  words  those  assurances 
which  come  from  those  no  longer  seen 
with  these  mortal  eyes;  but  it  seems  to  me 
that  the  "immanence  of  the  spirit*'  bears 
witness  to  itself  and  to  our  spirit  whenever 
we  rise  to  the  best  height  we  know.  When 
we  reach  the  upper  levels  of  our  own  souFs 
life,  we  find  that  we  are  aware  of  a  pre- 
sence; when  feeling  is  deep  enough,  is  it 
only  our  heart  which  beats  ?  These  mo- 
ments seem  to  me  to  constitute  more  and 
more  our  real  living,  and  make  everyday 
doings  the  road  which  leads  there. 

April  13,  1896.  At  Sea. 

When  I  mail  this  at  Plymouth  it  will 
be  a  sign  and  token  that  I  am  near  my 
port ;  and  then  you  will  begin  to  think  of 
the  French  cathedrals  and  hope  for  me 
that  I  shall  find  great  store  there. 

And  you,  dear  friend,  how  goes  it  with 
you  ?  Bravely  I  know,  and  happily  I  hope, 

C  165  ] 


LETTERS 

as  the  gifts  of  the  life  beyond  more  and 
more  pour  themselves  into  your  heart,  as 
the  mother  finds  fresh  channels  of  be- 
stowal, and  as  you  lift  your  eyes  unto  those 
helpful  hills  with  understanding. 

1894.   On  the  Road  from  Venice  to  Paris. 

My  Friend,  —  You  and  I  have  not 
spoken  in  words,  but  I  think  we  have  ex- 
changed greetings  very  often,  silently  this 
summer  since  that  day  when  I  saw  you 
last  on  the  street  corner.  And  oh,  I  hope 
it  has  gone  well  with  you  from  day  to 
day,  till  now  working  life  is  about  to  be- 
gin again,  with  more  strength  and  hope 
than  ever  ?  Is  it  like  this  ?  You  will  tell 
me  when  I  come,  if  not  before,  for  I  am 
nearing  the  home  stretch  now,  (October 
16,  I  sail,)  and  am  thankful  to  have  it  so. 
But  my  journey  has  been  wonderful  in  the 
gifts  it  has  made,  and  the  wonderful  les- 
sons it  has  taught  me.  I  have  done  few 

C  166  ] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

things,  but  mighty  ones,  and  now  as  I  re- 
turn from  Venice,  you  can  fancy  the 
trailing  clouds  of  memory  which  come 
with  me.  I  have  not  painted  at  all  except 
a  few  trifling  things.  I  have  just  stood 
still  to  let  the  magic  influences  come  in 
upon  me ;  and  have  rejoiced  in  the  pageant 
of  beauty  and  association  which  Europe 
has  spread  before  my  eyes.  I  had  not 
dreamed  of  going  to  Bayreuth,  but  a  dear 
friend  who  had  taken  an  apartment  there 
would  brook  no  refusal,  and  I  had  a  whole 
week  of  the  music !  You  will  love  to  know 
this  and  I  shall  tell  it  all  to  you  some  fine 
day.  I  had  hoped  for  a  word  from  you, 
but  I  am  glad  if  you  took  an  immunity 
from  the  "little  things*'  and  have  had 
only  books  and  sand-banks,  and  the  sea 
beyond.  But  when  I  arrive  do  let  me  find 
a  little  message. 


[  167] 


LETTERS 

January,  1898. 

I  am  indeed  grieved  for  you.  These 
losses  have  no  bitterness,  but  ah  !  the  lone- 
liness and  pain  of  missing.  One  can  only 
"straiten  one's  self  to  the  self-same  mark'' 
and  go  on  loving  and  hoping. 

March  23,  1902.   8.  S.  Saxonia. 

At  Easter  we  shall  all  be  thinking  of 
each  other,  and  so  this  ocean  in  between 
will  not  amount  to  very  much  after 
all.  .   .  . 

Easter  Day,  London,  1902. 

Dear  Friend, —  Do  you  not  think  it 
is  fit  that  I  should  send  you  a  little  word  at 
the  end  of  this  great  day,  when  we  have 
been  absent  in  body  but  present  in  spirit? 
I  do  indeed  love  to  have  a  word  with  you, 
and  to  tell  you  that  I  am  sitting  by  the 
River  Thames,  with  a  little  stone  balcony 
from  which  I  can  see  wonderful  things, 
which  ** teach  me  more  of  man,  than  all 

[  168] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

the  Sages  can,*'  and  which  an  empty  city 
(four  holidays  at  Easter)  has  made  some- 
thing wonderful  for  me.  ...  I  kept  our 
annual  feast  at  St.  Paul's  and  laid  a  white 
lilac  at  the  foot  of  Gordon's  beautiful  fig- 
ure which  lies  in  that  great  place. 

London,  Whitsuntide,   May  19,  1902. 

Miss  T.  .  .  .  and  I  like  this  little  partner- 
ship so  much,  as  friendly  as  it  is  free;  and 
with  the  great  city  lying  all  about  us,  we 
can  feel  it  to  be  society  or  solitude  just  as 
we  prefer.  I  loaf  magnificently,  and  yet  see 
things  and  individuals  and  pictures  in  a 
way  I  find  restful  and  refreshing  to  a  rare 
degree.  And  (as  I  seem  to  be  multiplying 
paradoxes!)  I  might  add,  that  London  is 
so  mysteriously  great  and  small  both  at 
once.  It  never  takes  long  to  go  anywhere; 
yet  you  know  how  vast  the  place  is.  But 
I  shall  square  these  mysterious  circles 
some  time.  All  your  news  was  so  refresh- 

[  169] 


LETTERS 

ing,  and  the  Charles  River  seems  more 
near  and  dear  because  of  the  Seine  and  the 
Thames,  and  I  dare  say  you  have  seen  lit- 
tle boats  floating  by  filled  with  this  mes- 
sage! I  have  word  from  several  of  the 
Class-family,  and  I  long  for  more.  ...  I 
returned  .  .  .  and  kept  the  feast  of  the 
Spirit  here,  going  to  the  little  9th  century 
St.  Martin's-in-the-Fields. 

On  a  suggestion  that  for  the  sake  of  her  health  Mrs.  Whitman 
should  stop  teaching  the  Bible  Class. 

September  29,  1902. 

Ah,  dear  friend,  this  new  tribute  of  all 
your  loving  care  did  not  cross  my  mind ! 
and  I  really  can't  tell  you  how  I  felt  when 
I  read  your  note  and  felt  the  Class  behind 
it.  Bless  you  all,  and  you  will  know  how 
your  goodness  makes  me  feel  without 
words ;  I  know.  Nor  can  I  have  such  care 
round  about  me  without  taking  it  into  seri- 
ous consideration,  and  I  have  just  thought 
[  170  ] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

it  all  through  now;  and  this  is  what  I 
will  do  if  my  dear  pastors  and  masters  con- 
sent !  I  will  do  very  little  about  the  Fair — 
which  I  am  ready  to  believe  is  just  going 
right  on !  and  I  will  not  begin  the  Class 
till  the  first  Sunday  in  December,  instead 
of  November,  and  have  a  three  months* 
course. 

There,  dear  friend,  is  n't  that  meek  ? 
But  I  do  truly  think  that  I  could  not,  ex- 
cept for  far  deeper  cause,  give  it  up  wholly, 
do  you  see?  And  I  thank  and  love  you  all. 

Undated. 

I  had  a  letter  from  E.  F.  to-day  with  the 
very  best  of  her  in  it,  and  it  made  me  feel 
anew  how  fine  folks  are  who  are  just  going 
right  along !  I  could  write  an  essay  on  this 
theme  to-night,  only  it  would  have  to  be 
sent  to  the  Angels  to  be  wholly  under- 
stood. 

[  171  ] 


LETTERS 


TO  MISS  CHARLOTTE  G.  GREELEY 

Dear  Friend, — That  box  of  ginger  is 
just  what  I  wanted,  and  is  promptly  going 
to  sea  with  me  !  So  you  see  how  well  you 
knew  my  needs  and  supplied  them  !  I  am 
off  in  the  morning,  and  I  send  you  a  last 
word  of  love  and  of  good  wishes.  I  think 
you  will  find  in  making  so  large  an  effort 
in  returning  to  the  place  so  full  of  mem- 
ory, that  there  is  born  a  new  hope,  that 
there  will  come  a  deepened  peace.  Heaven 
bless  you  as  you  go  and  come. 

At  Sea,  April  13,  1896. 

Dear  Friend,  —  Your  message  was 
dear  to  get,  and  the  box  of  ginger  just 
about  the  one  thing  that  for  the  first  three 
days  came  within  the  possibilities  of  this 
depleted  sailor. 

For  this  voyage  is  much  like  other  voy- 
[  172  ] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

ages,  and  when  it  is  rough,  I  am  a  miserable 
creature;  and  find  my  safety  consists  in 
surrender.  So  you  can  see  how  comforting 
that  good  and  warming  little  gift  was; 
and  it  will  please  me  on  land  also  and 
serve  for  many  a  slight  refection  while  I 
explore  cathedrals,  and  have  no  time  for 
wayside  inns. 

I  think  of  you  and  of  your  goodness  in 
sending  me  a  last  message  and  of  the  strong 
way  in  which  you  now  are  going  forward. 
The  winter  has  been  a  great  winter,  and 
greatest  of  all,  I  must  believe,  in  that  it  has 
lifted  such  a  company  of  us  into  new  realms 
of  thought  and  feeling.  We  may  not  yet 
have  learned  the  lessons,  but  we  have  had 
the  Book  put  into  our  hands. 

So  in  tears  we  go  on  sowing,  hoping  that 
we  may  reap  with  joy.  .  .  .  The  Class 
flowers  on  the  ship  are  still  lovely. 


[  173] 


LETTERS 

December  9,  1889. 

Dear  Friend,  —  Do  you  not  think  it 
will  refresh  you  to  take  these  tickets  and 
go  with  a  friend  to  the  concert  to-night? 
They  are  in  a  quiet  corner  of  the  gallery 
over  the  clock,  and  the  concert  will  be  a 
lovely  one. 

So  I  hope  you  may  feel  like  it ;  though 
no  one  knows  for  another  in  these  days  of 
remembrance.  This  is  a  great  day  of  mem- 
ory for  me ;  and  I  am  feeling  the  peace  of 
having  been  able,  for  a  few  minutes  at  least, 
to  get  out  of  this  strange  world  and  into 
one  which  is  like  heaven  and  home.  Some 
time  we  shall  be  able  to  find  all  the  days 
thus  converted;  and  then  it  will  be  Heaven. 

Thanking  for  catnip  sent  to  Bay,  the  cat. 

January  11,  1 90 1 . 

Dear  Friend,  —  You  couldn't  have 
pleased  little  Bay  and  me  more  than  by 
those  gifts !   He  had  been  longing  for  fresh 

[  174  ] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

fields,  and  there  they  were,  in  their  best 
form  (to  his  mind)  and  my  beautiful  rose 
was  put  in  a  sacred  place  and  stays  with  me 
still.  I  wish  I  might  have  seen  you:  I 
should  have  gone  to  25  if  I  had  not  been 
so  handicapped  by  the  things  which  must 
be  done  and  Doctor's  orders,  combined. 
So  I  had  to  let  some  happy  moments  go. 
You  will  write  to  me,  won't  you?  And 
you  will  find  in  the  old  places  ever  more 
peace. 

Undated,  probably  1901. 

Dear  Friend, — I  have  this  sweet  note 
from  you,  and  all  summer  —  this  long 
solemn  summer —  I  have  kept  the  rose  you 
sent  me.  .  .   . 

You  will  know,  dear,  from  your  own 
experience  what  these  great  readjustments 
mean,  and  how  supremely  one  desires  to 
shape  the  new  endeavours  to  a  greater 
end, 

C  175] 


LETTERS 

Whit  Sunday,  London,  1902. 

Dear  Friend, —  If  you  knew  how  de- 
lighted I  was  with  those  little  real  portraits 
of  that  angel  cat,  and  with  your  having 
taken  them,  then  you  would  know  how  I 
must  write  and  tell  you  so !  and  really  I 
think  they  are  the  best  and  dearest  ever 
taken  of  any  dear  little  object  such  as  that 
yellow  and  white  person  is.  So  a  thousand 
thanks  to  you  and  always  my  love. ...  I  am 
established  in  this  loafing  life  at  last,  where 
it  is  just  as  I  thought  it  would  be,  easier 
to  loaf  here  in  London  than  anywhere 
else;  for  when  everybody  else  is  doing 
something,  it  seems  really  necessary  to  do 
as  little  as  possible  and  simply  look  on  at 
the  busy  pageant  of  men  and  things.  Then 
there  come  all  those  interesting  things 
and  persons  which  occur  in  a  wonderful 
world  like  London,  and  one  is  interested 
and  stimulated  in  just  the  right  way.  You 
will  have  been  told,  I  am  sure,  also,  that 

[  176  ] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

my  look  at  the  gallery  in  Madrid  was 
enough  to  make  any  journey  worth  while. 
So  great,  so  beautiful,  and  so  full  of  les- 
sons, as  the  pictures  of  Velasquez  were, 
there,  ...  I  hope  you  are  soon  to  be  free 
and  off  for  Nature,  so  to  speak,  and  all  the 
summer*s  gifts  of  love  and  memory.  Take 
a  message  from  me  into  it  all. 


[  177  ] 


LETTERS 
TO  MRS.  CHARLES  LAWTON 

A    MEMBER    OF    MRS.    WHITMAN*S    BIBLE   CLASS 

April  21,  1 90 1. 

Dear  Friend, —  Wasn't  it  the  very 
dearest  Tea  Party  we  ever  had  ?  And  I 
think  part  of  the  success  lay  in  having  your 
father,  as  w^ell  as  your  mother,  present! 
Now  they  will  always  have  to  come,  and 
to  bring  Mr.  Lawton  to  a  sense  of  his  re- 
sponsibilities!  .  .  .  Thank  you,  yet  once 
more,  my  dear  child,  for  your  constant 
help  and  cheer.  It  means  a  great  deal  to 
Yours  affectionately, 

Sarah  W.  Whitman. 

When  Mrs.  Lawton  was  prevented  by  illness  in  her  family 
from  being  with  the  Class. 

Easter  night,  1903. 

I  can't  let  the  day  come  to  an  end, 
without  a  word  with  you,  when  you  and 
yours  have  been  so  much  with  me  in  all 
our  thoughts. 

[  178] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

Your  letter  was  a  comfort ;  and  I  hope 
you  know  how  much  we  all  share  your 
loving  cares  and  vigil :  and  are  one  with 
you  in  hopes.  I  send  a  message  of  the 
warmest  regard  to  your  father  and  mother ; 
and  I  know  you  are  feeling  the  blessed 
hopes  and  promises  of  this  great  day, 
which  comes  with  love  and  healing  every 
year. 

May  20,  1903. 

My  heart  is  with  you  to-night,  knowing 
what  has  come  to  the  household  and  to 
you,  in  seeing  your  beloved  mother  go 
into  Heaven.  There  are  no  words,  when 
these  great  moments  come,  but  heart  meets 
heart  and  we  all  feel  and  love  together  and 
you  have  that  beautiful  retrospect  of  love 
and  devotion  which  must  make  memory 
sweet,  and  hope  more  perfect,  for  memory 
and  hope  go  hand  in  hand  with  those  who 
believe  and  love. 

Will  you  lay  this  rose  I  send  beside  her 

[  179] 


LETTERS 

who  is  now  in  the  peace  which  passes  un- 
derstanding. 

On  receipt  of  a  letter  telling  of  Mrs.  Lawton's  approaching 
Confirmation. 

March  24,  1904. 

You  know  without  my  words  all  it 
means  to  me  to  get  this  letter  from  you: 
for  I  know  it  marks  a  deep  rich  step  in  the 
Way  of  Life,  and  my  heart  rejoices  in 
knowing  also  that  you  are  taking  it  because 
you  feel  called  to  enter  yet  more  fully 
into  communion  with  those  who  believe 
and  love.  I  have  felt  sure  it  would  be  so, 
the  privileges  and  the  griefs  which  came 
with  your  dear  mother's  illness  seemed  to 
me  to  be  so  blessed  to  you  and  your  way 
of  meeting  them  so  sweet  and  true,  that  I 
knew  your  eyes  would  see  deeply  into  God's 
desires  and  plans  for  you.  And  now  this 
"closer  walk*'  will  bring  its  own  teaching 
with  it.  It  moves  my  heart  and  it  humbles 
[  180] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

it  to  read  the  sweet  message  you  send  me, 
but  I  can  only  tell  you,  what  I  am  sure 
you  have  known  before,  that  I  have  been 
comforted  and  helped  by  my  intercourse 
with  you  and  yours,  all  these  happy  win- 
ters ;  and  the  gratitude  is  mine,  dear  child. 

In  reference  to  the  first  Communion  after  the  Confirmation. 

March  30,  1904. 

I  shall  go,  if  all  is  well,  to  the  Thursday 
evening  service  to  sit  under  the  gallery  on 
the  side  of  the  Baptistry  (which  is  where 
the  Class  generally  sits)  and  won't  you  come 
and  be  with  me  there.?  I  hope  so. 


[  181  ] 


LETTERS 
LETTERS   TO   CHILDREN 

TO  HENRY  PARKMAN,  JR. 

1902. 

My  Dear  Little  Godson,  —  When 
I  went  to  St.  Paul's  in  London,  Easter  Sun- 
day, I  saw  the  beautiful  monument  to 
General  Gordon,  whom  you  will  know 
something  about,  and  the  inscription  in 
memory  of  this  "Soldier  and  Servant''  was 
so  fine  that  I  send  you  a  copy  of  it  on  the 

next  page. 

Your  ever  loving 

M. 

In  Memory  of 

Charles  George  Gordon, 

Who  everywhere,  and  at  all  times,  gave  his 

Strength  to  the  Weak,  his  substance  to  the 

Poor,  his  Sympathy  to  the  Suffering: 

And  his  heart  to  God. 

April  27,  1904. 

Dearest  Godson, —  I  had  meant  to 
come  this  afternoon  and  see  you  all  at  the 

[  182  ] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

birthday  play-time.  But  I  can't  do  this 
and  so  I  just  send  you  my  birthday  love 
and  this  birthday  Shakespeare.  And  when 
we  two  have  talked  it  over  we  will  write 
one  of  the  great  verses  in  each  volume  and 
your  name  and  date,  and  do  all  that  we 
don't  do  to-day. 

My  love  to  you  and  all  the  family  and 
I  shall  count  on  you  more  and  more  every 
year. 

Your  loving  Godmother. 

VERSES  TO  PENELOPE  PARKMAN 

Who  sent  her  a  little  book,  made,  decorated  and  written  by  herself. 

There  came  the  other  day  some  leaves 

Not  from  a  summer  tree, 
But  full  of  Stories,  and  with  care 

All  printed  out  for  me  ! 

The  Book  was  bound  and  sewed  with  care 

And  it  had  covers  too 
Whereon  with  Art  some  little  hand 

Had  set  a  pattern  new. 

[  183] 


LETTERS 

Oh,  who  did  own  this  little  hand 

So  gently  used  for  me  ? 
And  does  the  little  Artist  know 

That  every  time  I  see 

My  pretty  Book,  I  always  say 
"  Who  e*er  the  author  be. 

It  may  have  been  that  dearest  Child 
They  call  Penelope!" 


[  184] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 


TO  PROFESSOR  WILLIAM  JAMES 

August  7,  1890. 

My  Dear  Mr.  James, — You  will  smile 
when  I  say  that  the  first  moment  I  have 
had  to  write  (as  a  matter  of  pleasure), 
comes  in  the  train  on  my  return  from 
New  York. 

I  went  thither  yesterday  because  the 
sudden  departure  of  Mr.  Schuyler  made 
me  want  to  make  one  last  pilgrimage  to 
his  shrine.  .  . . 

I  am  glad  I  went  for  every  reason,  and 
especially  because  it  gave  me  a  quiet  morn- 
ing with  them  in  his  quiet  presence.  .  .  . 
I  don't  know  whether  you  knew  him:  a 
really  brilliant  man,  witty,  profound  and 
original  intellectually,  wearing  a  charm- 
ing mask,  under  which  was  a  fiery  heart; 
hotnme  du  monde,  to  a  degree  almost  con- 
tinental, yet  with  a  transcendental  faith 

[  185] 


LETTERS 

and  a  touch  of  asceticism  in  his  Ufe.  Ah, 
I  cared  so  much  for  him,  and  I  like  to 
feel  that  he  died  as  he  did ;  the  last  news 
of  him  that  he  had  "sailed  with  the 
squadron"  and  the  great  sea  under  his  feet. 
I  am  sure  that  I  get  further  and  further 
from  the  Eastern  point  of  view  wherein 
the  Each  is  merged  in  the  All  —  for  as 
far  as  I  can  trace  the  results  of  the  best 
living  of  this  life,  it  goes  to  develop  and 
strengthen  the  fibre  and  flavor  of  the  in- 
dividual, —  the  more  consummate  and 
supreme  the  experience,  the  more  distinct 
and  single  the  creature.  Is  not  this  true? 
and  Habit ;  —  regarding  which  your  pages 
say  the  best  word  at  every  line,  —  Habit 
furnishes  the  scaffolding,  a  mode,  an  hypo- 
thesis, from  which  the  person  can  work 
and  play  freely :  and  finally  fly  serenely  into 
new  conditions  and  a  less  straitened  air. 


[  i86] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

Nancy,  August  7,  1894. 

I  have  had  hopes  of  hearing  from  you, 
my  dear  friend,  in  this  land  of  France;  but 
failing  this,  I  must,  before  going  over  the 
frontier,  make  report  to  you  of  my  doings. 
Will  you  forgive  this  flagrant  pencil  with 
which  I  write?  The  ink  of  the  country 
appears  to  be  a  kind  of  blackberry  jam, 
and  I  crave  your  leave  for  a  medium  more 
to  my  mind.  It  has  been  a  wonderful  jour- 
ney, and  I  am  rested  and  refreshed  past  all 
belief.  At  first  a  week  in  London,  where 
you  know  I  had  only  been  for  a  few  hours 
on  a  dark  Whistler's  day  twenty  years  ago ; 
—  a  week  of  intoxication,  for  the  great 
passionate  city  took  an  immense  hold  on 
what  I  am  pleased  to  call  my  imagina- 
tion. The  flood  of  human  life  which  pours 
through  it  is  full  of  significance  ;  and  seen 
as  I  saw  it,  in  the  flush  of  "the  season,'' 
gave  fresh  contrasts  to  every  scene.  For 
the  moment  it  lay  like  a  gay  flower  on 

[187] 


LETTERS 

a  sombre  background,  purple  and  red  with 
association.  I  saw  people  and  things  galore ; 
doors  flew  open,  and  I  found  old  friends 
and  new,  and  had  therewith  great  sights 
of  great  pictures  and  monuments,  and  all 
the  rest.  Mr.  Bayard  is  having  a  political 
holiday,  as  it  were,  and  enjoys  it  immensely, 
and  Mr.  Bryce  finds  himself  as  President 
of  the  Board  of  Trade,  in  a  post  the  most 
interesting  he  has  ever  held.  One  matter 
of  interest  was  the  Sargent  decorative  work 
for  the  Boston  Public  Library,  about  one 
fourth  of  the  whole,  and  so  not  to  be  judged 
save  as  part  of  the  design.  Yet  one  sees 
what  manner  it  is  of.  It  is  all  the  things 
without  being  the  one  thing ;  clever,  deco- 
rative, —  enormously  so,  —  and  rich  in 
color,  yet  not  beautiful  in  color ;  an  assem- 
blage of  objects  rather  than  a  composition; 
a  museum  of  idols  rather  than  a  picture  of 
the  world's  religions.  So  it  seemed  to  me. 
I  tore  myself  away  from  London  for  the 
[  i88  ] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

sake  of  Paris  and  the  Champs  de  Mars, 
where  Whistler's  pictures  gave  me  a  great 
joy ;  and  Whistler  himself  I  saw  much  of. 
He  is  like  a  witty  caricature  of  himself,  as 
it  were,  but  an  artist  par  excellence,  and 
ready  for  endless  talk.  Most  other  artists 
had,  alas,  left  Paris ;  but  I  saw  a  few  friends, 
and  even  braved  dining  in  French  with  a 
vocabulary  that  would  have  filled  you  with 
humor  and  amusement. 

But  one  has  the  calmness  of  desperation, 
and  I  almost  wish  that  you  might  have 
heard  me  rally  on  the  prepositions,  use  the 
infinitives  by  wholesale,  and  substituteyi/r^ 
for  etre  with  unblushing  inadvertence.  Ah 
well,  the  blood  of  my  ancestors  makes 
France  seem  native  to  me  though  my  speech 
is  ridiculous,  and  all  the  way  I  feel  an  enor- 
mous understanding  of  that  swift  life  which 
lives  itself  out  more  freely,  more  fully,  I 
am  persuaded,  than  anywhere  else  in  the 
world.   For  the  last  fortnight  I  had  lived 

[  189] 


LETTERS 

among  the  great  cathedrals,  of  which  I  do 
not  propose  here  to  speak.  You  will  under- 
stand what  they  have  meant  to  me,  —  all 
the  way  from  the  austere  beauty  of  Amiens 
to  the  supreme  richness  of  Rheims,  —  a 
dream  of  delight  and  of  inspiration.  No 
one  had  told  me  of  the  things  I  found ; 
but  that  is  always  so  with  great  things,  — 
that  "strangeness  of  excellent  beauty,"  — 
and  I  have  gone  with  the  breathlessness  of 
discovery  from  one  to  another. 

Here,  having  been  obliged  to  wait  for 
a  letter  I  had  missed,  I  have  had  a  day  in 
the  fields  for  sketching,  and  have  abode 
in  a  hotel  full  of  gay  provincial  life,  and 
have  felt  its  vivacious  abandon.  As  I 
painted  yesterday  in  a  lovely  stretching 
pasture,  my  guardians  and  protectors  were 
my  maid  sitting  majestical,  and  the  cocher, 
a  man  of  limited  intelligence  but  great 
urbanity,  and  a  lover  of  Art ; — a  little  boy 
holding  a  large  cow  in  leash,  which  grazed 

C  190  ] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

beside  me :  and  occasional  groups  of  wan- 
dering peasants.  To  the  sympathetic  eye 
this  might  have  seemed  like  a  Virgilian 
pastoral,  but  the  profane  would  have  blas- 
phemed, I  fear;  for  me,  it  was  wholly 
adorable. 

I  have  not  seen  your  brother:  these 
friends  of  his  have  told  me  that  he  was 
lying  hid  from  the  haunts  of  men,  and  I 
could  not  invade  his  solitude.  Perhaps  at 
Venice  we  may  meet;  or  in  Paris  when 
I  am  there  in  late  September,  for  I  need 
not  assure  you  that  I  want  to  see  him  im- 
mensely. 

And  I  want  to  hear  of  you  and  yours — 
do  tell  me  that  you  are  better  and  that  all 
goes  well  on  the  mountain  and  on  the 
plain:  for  here  in  Europe  one  feels  by 
turns  so  near  and  so  very  far.  To  Mrs. 
James  I  send  warm  love  and  greeting,  and 
I  am  ever  faithfully 

Yours,  S.  W. 

[  191  ] 


LETTERS 

October  i8,  1899.   Old  Place. 

My  dear  Friend,  —  Only  a  few  days 
ago  I  heard  that  you  had  been  delayed  at 
Nauheim :  and  for  cause  of  illness,  which 
gave  me  a  fine  alarm ;  —  and  to-day  comes 
your  letter  and  makes  things  seem  better, 
but  bad  enough  in  the  retrospect.  So  that 
I  call  upon  all  the  Gods  East  and  West  to 
wholly  heal  and  preserve  you.  Yet  even 
so  I  shall  repair  to  Harry  and  Billy  for 
fresh  news:  and  only  be  satisfied  when  I 
know  that  you  are  really  sitting  "  equable, 
sedate"  —  composing  comfortably  the  Gif- 
ford  lectures — free  body,  mind,  and  estate. 
Meantime  I  send  to  you  and  Alice  James 
great  measures  of  friendly  sympathy  over 
all  the  delay  and  difficulty.  Be  sure  also 
that  I  have  not  sat  here  in  epistolary  si- 
lence !  I  wrote ;  and  also,  as  your  agent  in 
the  matter  of  the  little  placard,  forwarded 
a  proof  of  the  same.  Is  it  not  Brown  and 
Shipley?  And  do  I  not  write  a  "sweet 
[  192  ] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

Italian  hand/*  illegible  if  you  will,  but 
stimulating  to  research. 

Yet  after  all  a  lost  letter  is  the  only 
"  best  instance  '*  —  it  dies  with  its  secret ; 
a  suspected  treasure  for  ever.  Believe  me 
such  was  mine ! 

Now  this  persiflage  I  assure  you  is 
wholly  the  result  of  hearing  from  you  and 
speaking  with  you !  for  I  have  had  a  sum- 
mer of  almost  perfect  silence :  and  when 
I  had  emerged  into  speech  it  has  been  of 
the  order  which  flows  from  the  disused 
organs  of  the  mind.  And  to-day,  this  i8th 
of  October,  I  give  thanks  that  I  am  about 
to  return  to  the  "  serenity  of  the  streets," 
to  use  Dr.  Johnson's  urban  (and  urbane) 
phrase.  Perhaps  I  can  summarize  the  last 
four  months  by  saying  that  I  have  asked 
no  guest  under  my  roof,  have  done  no 
work,  and  have  had  no  time !  But  we  will 
let  these  gloomy  facts  pass:  it  has  seemed 
best  that  I  should  so  order  events  as  to  suit 
[  ^93  ] 


LETTERS 

conditions  not  my  own:  and  now,  en  avant 
as  best  one  may.  In  the  long  stretches  of 
succeeding  days  I  have  meditated  some- 
what and  have  observed  the  course  of 
events,  and  considering  the  amount  of  life- 
stufF  which  has  been  consumed  in  the  cur- 
rent affairs  of  France,  England,  and  Amer- 
ica, you  can  see  that  though  silent  I  have 
not  been  dull. 

It  enchants  me  to  know  that  you  find 
the  old  France  renewing  her  faith  in  spite 
of  these  cankers  and  these  hideous  lepro- 
sies. The  moral  chain  is  as  strong  as  its 
strongest  link:  and  hangs  from  a  foundation 
immortal  and  indivisible.  Indeed,  could 
anything  but  the  Republic  have  stood  the 
fierce  assault  of  the  last  four  years  ?  I  think 
not. 

I  wonder  if  you  have  chanced  to  see 
Madame  Darmesteter  in  Paris?  And  oh, 
by  the  way,  what  a  sane,  brilliant,  and  large 
critique  of  Modern  French  literature  has 

[  194  ] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

your  brother  just  written;  with  perfect 
courage  and  good  feeling.  It  is  so  refresh- 
ing to  have  a  final  word  for  an  individual; 
and  I  opened  the  little  cupboard  which  I 
had  for  M.  Brunetiere  and  put  your  bro- 
ther's epigraph  in  with  him.  But  I  must 
not  begin  to  talk  of  all  the  things  I  wish 
to  talk  of,  nor  after  murmuring  remarks 
about  the  Universe,  turn  with  a  fatal  ten- 
dency to  one's  own  small  but  acute  round 
of  living,  where  there  is  of  course  every- 
thing to  say!  Some  time  if  there's  ever  an- 
other Summer,  I  may  write  for  your  amuse- 
ment or  your  analysis,  the  story  of  a  day, 
or  some  such  chronicle  —  sort  of  Autour 
de  mon  Cceur ;  travels,  or  travel,  within  the 
small  citadel  of  the  breast,  and  what  it 
can  compass  between  dawn  and  midnight. 
This,  as  a  matter  of  psychical  interest 
merely:  for  in  one's  later  years  one  has 
the  advantage  of  living  and  contemplating 
one's  self  in  action  at  the  same  time.  Ah,  I 
C  195  ]  , 


LETTERS 

hope  you  are  in  London  and  at  work.  I 
can  think  of  nothing  more  splendid  than 
to  be  lost  and  found  there,  and  I  seem  to 
feel  the  wheel  of  life  revolving  at  a  great 
pace! 

November  27,  1899. 

I  am  really  moved  to  the  heart,  my  dear 
friend,  on  hearing  that  your  first  weeks 
in  the  supremacy  of  that  literary  retreat  at 
De  Vere  Gardens  had  been  handicapped 
with  pain  and  illness.  I  had  thought  you 
in  trim  for  a  fine  pull,  and  lo !  this  hard- 
ship. I  pray  heaven  the  sky  has  cleared 
again  and  you  are  in  control  of  yourself 
again,  but  I  shall  not  be  content  till  I  find 
a  certainty  of  this  from  some  authorized 
witness.  Oh,  it  is  difficult  to  have  one's 
friends  across  the  water.  I  should  have  taken 
a  train  long  ago  to  see  how  you  all  looked, 
if  it  were  not  for  this  "mob  of  waters." 
As  it  is,  on  getting  this  I  desire  to  have 
you  write  four  words,  viz.  "  I  am  perfectly 

[  196] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

well/'  and  have  them  countersigned  by  a 
certain  Lady  who  cannot  lie.  These  lines 
(which  make  a  mute  apology  in  every 
word  for  their  incompetency  of  lead  pen- 
cil) I  write  as  usual  on  the  train,  perhaps 
the  only  place  where  I  dodge  the  issues 
of  Ought,  and  invoke  the  freedom  of  De- 
sire— and  having  no  news  worth  transcrib- 
ing, purpose  to  invent  some:  or  eschewing 
news  altogether  as  a  medium  of  perverse 
invention,  return  to  things  of  the  younger 
world,  stars,  sentiments,  and  aspirations. 

But  this  pose  would  be  hard  to  sustain : 
the  Genius  of  1900  would  trip  me  up,  and 
harness  me  to  facts  again.  Just  at  present 
however  there  are  none. 

I  have  only  been  in  town  long  enough 
to  bury  decently  the  ashes  of  the  summer 
and  to  attend  to  lighting  the  winter  fires. 

ril  tell  you  one  thing  that  is  strange 
enough:  just  as  one  says  to  one's  self  I  can 
do  no  more,  one  feels  the  rush  of  some 
[  197  ] 


LETTERS 

new  impulse,  and  this  Fall  I  am  aware  of 
some  force  of  heaven,  some  spirit  out  of 
the  night,  which  beckons  to  me  and  moves 
me  mightily  to  all  forms  of  endeavor.  So 
instead  of  dying  and  sighing,  I  have  been 
living  inwardly  —  outwardly  too  perhaps 
in  some  strenuous  ways  —  at  a  rate  which 
has  made  time  long.  Two  or  three  people 
also  have  shot  across  my  sky  of  late — real 
ones,  and  to  a  woman  (whose  life  has  been 
lived  at  tragic  centres  and  who  wrote  that 
anguished  book  7 he  Gadfly)  ^  Mrs.  Voy- 
nich,  I  gave  a  letter  to  you  two,  for  she 
deserved  to  know  you,  and  had  a  great 
wish  beside.  She  makes  the  straightest 
charges,  and  sees  two  or  three  things  with 
a  supreme  and  exquisite  clarity;  and  the 
rest  of  things  she  hardly  notices  at  all.  You 
will  perceive  a  remote  white  fire  in  her. 

My  mind  is  so  set  on  Gifl^ord  Lectures 
that  I  have  been  reading  them  wherever 
found :  some  unco  dull,  and  those  of  Mt\ 
[  198  ] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

Wallace  with  splendid  rich  pages  in  them. 
Perhaps  I  spoke  of  him  before  to  you ;  but 
now  I  have  really  browsed  happily  in  his 
pastures:  and  cared  awfully  for  some 
heights  which  he  opened  to  me.  I  can't 
help  thinking  that  in  some  future  air  it 
may  be  given  to  me  to  sit  upon  a  slope  of 
the  new  Thibet,  and  know  the  joys  of  con- 
templation.  But  not  now. 

Dear  friend :  this  is  a  shabby  letter :  but 
you  will  pardon  its  decousue  quality  inside 
and  out :  because  it  is  really  meant  to  con- 
vey my  love  to  De  Vere  Gardens  with  the 
wish  that  I  could  enter  there  and  hear  dis- 
courses of  "great  things,  great  thoughts, 
thoughts  lasting  to  the  end.'' 

S.  W. 

May  9,  1900. 

Ah,  dear  friend,  it  was  really  immense  to 
get  a  letter  from  you  written  in  the  Pauline 
manner,  with  thine  own  hand!  and  telling 
[  199  ] 


LETTERS 

at  last  so  large  a  story.  If  now  presently 
the  Doctor  at  Nauheim  will  just  prove 
your  heart  to  be  what  we  all  know  it  is, — 
then  we  will  all  be  content :  and  ask  no- 
thing from  you  but  to  be  well  and  happy. 
This  is  the  third  time  I  have  set  pen 
to  paper  and  been  intercepted,  drugged, 
robbed  and  carried  off  by  masked  force ! 
Apparently  only  sordid  and  commercial 
letters  are  possible  in  these  days:  for  the 
letters  of  friendship  which  are  all  the  time 
forming  themselves  in  the  heart  have  not 
a  ghost  of  a  chance.  Yet  like  the  fabulous 
gentleman  in  history  "I  still  live"  and 
here  on  the  9th  of  May  return  to  try  again, 
and  insist  on  recording  my  impressions,  at 
best  a  reiterated  commonplace,  as  your  ap- 
proved M.  G.  Farde  so  handsomely  proves. 
Do  you  by  the  way  think  him  to  have  made 
his  point  with  his  generation  ?  I  am  sur- 
prised reading  just  now  his  sociological 
papers,  to  find  how  deeply  some  of  the  in- 
[  ^00  ] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

sights  of  his  earlier  work  seem  to  have 
taken  root  and  begun  to  put  forth  new 
leaves  and  perhaps  flowers.  And  again  I 
have  found  myself  recognizing  the  initia- 
tive impulse  in   the  course  of  a  violent 

contention  with ,  whose  theories 

are  now  taking  more  definite  shape  in  vari- 
ous ways,  who  assumes  that  the  child  of 
primitive  man  does  not  exert  an  imitative 
faculty  when  he  depicts  this  or  that  in  a 
rude  conventional  way.  That  the  savage 
lays  a  little  border  on  the  edge  of  his  bowl 
*^pour  s'amuser''  as  it  were;  not  in  imita- 
tion of  objects  seen  and  consciously  or  un- 
consciously imitated.  Now  to  my  mind 
the  rude  abstractions  of  a  child's  work  are 
abstractions  because  he  does  not  see  enough 
to  make  his  work  concrete:  and  they  re- 
semble true  conventional  work  because  in 
both  certain  verities  are  omitted,  but  the 
reasons  for  these  omissions  are  absolutely 
different.  However  this  is  a  dull  disquisi- 
[  20I   ] 


LETTERS 

tion  into  which  I  have  been  foolishly  led. 
But  some  day  I  must  tell  you  a  great  deal 
that  is  very  interesting  apropos  de  cela, 

I  have  been  wondering  too  if  you  have 
looked  at  Santayana's  book :  for  I  am  long- 
ing to  see  a  really  splendid  critique  of  this 
amazing  piece  of  literature.  The  honey 
of  Hymettus  was  not  more  exquisitely 
distilled  than  in  these  pages,  nor  was  the 
perfume  of  an  earlier  day  ever  more  deli- 
cately felt :  but  that  long  "  cri  d'esperance 
qui  a  traverse  la  terre^^  he  seems  not  to 
have  heard :  or  if  he  has  heard  it,  it  has 
seemed  but  barbaric  to  his  ear.  Is  it  not 
true  that  if  to  that  calm  East  we  cannot 
add  this  eager  West,  then  modern  life  is  a 
solecism  and  modern  ideals  a  bad  dream  ? 

These  questions  remind  me  to  tell  you 
what  a  heavenly  fortune  came  to  me  in 
being  asked  to  paint  the  portrait  of  Mr. 
Ward.  I  had  only  seen  him  —  never  had 
speech  with  him,  when  Mrs.  Dorr  had  a 

[    202    ] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

sudden  revelation  from  Heaven  that  she 
wanted  me  to  paint  him  ! 

I  lost  no  time  in  accepting,  and  we  have 
had  a  refreshing  period,  the  work  done  on 
Sunday  mornings :  he  going  on  with  a 
most  adorable  monologue,  I  agonizing 
joyfully  over  his  changing  outlines:  and 
then  a  few  moments  of  rest  and  ex- 
change of  personal  convictions !  You  can 
see  it  all :  and  you  can  pray  for  me,  for  I 
have  got  something  in  likeness  to  which 
I  must  now  add  technical  excellence  —  the 
old  "  rub  "  for  one  who  never  learned  his 

trade  alas !    This  and head  and  some 

children's,  with  my  Commencement  win- 
dow and  several  smaller  matters  in  glass, 
have  made  my  days  long.  Still  the  win- 
ter's **  cruse  of  oil  and  little  cake ''  have 
not  wasted  quite :  and  these  flying  skies 
and  burning  bushes  of  May  invite  my  soul 
at  a  pitch  I  can  hardly  describe. 

Just  at  this  moment  I  am  going  to  New 
[  203  ] 


LETTERS 

York  for  48  hours  for  the  Archaeological 
Institute  Meeting,  which  sounds  a  little 
dry :  but  I  stay  with  the  Chapmans  which 
enlarges  the  horizon,  and  see  many  friends 
in  the  interludes.  Jack's  book  gives  signs 
of  the  really  careful  revision  he  gave  it, 
and  he  is  working  on  some  new  things,  as 
well  as  doing  each  month  the  whole  of 
the  "Nursery."  People  are  still  depressed 
because  he  is  n't  different  from  what  he 
is  —  but  it  is  hard  to  bring  the  "  vox  da- 
mantis''  to  suit  a  drawing-room  pitch,  or 
if  one  could  it  would  not  be  a  ^^vox  da- 
mantis  T  So  this  problem  is  insoluble. 

June,  1 90 1. 

Dear  Friend,  —  I  can't  tell  you  how 
I  was  set  up  by  your  letter  from  Edin- 
burgh— your  splendor,  your  theme  in  the 
first  lecture,  with  its  honey,  its  sting,  and 
its  large  inclusions:  all  spoken  in  the 
"braw  tone"  !  And  now  I  know  from  Rye 
[  204  ] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

that  you  did  the  whole  ten  and  are  a  new 
man. 

Somehow  I  can  even  bear  seeing  you 
and  yours  go  back  for  one  more  pull  at 
Nauheim  so  that  the  seals  of  perfection 
may  be  set  upon  your  state,  and  leave  you 
free  to  play  the  Emeritus  role  in  its  most 
majestical  form. 

I  think  you  have  had  that  bad  turn 
which  comes  and  calls  us  up  about  the 
middle  of  life;  and  thank  heaven  you 
have  weathered  it,  while  friends  right  and 
left  of  us  could  not  withstand  the  attack. 

I   don't   know  whether  you   knew  in 

the  inner  man, — he  was  so  violent 

and  brilliant  and  recalcitrant,  on  the  sur- 
face, —  but  really  an  idealist  in  bonds, 
and  if  he  were  your  friend,  such  a  steady 
friend.  I  am  glad  for  himself  that  he 
stepped  so  gallantly  off:  for  he  was  with- 
out a  point  de  repaire  since died,  and 

the  world  was  a  sorry  one  to  his  mind. 
[  205  ] 


LETTERS 

Your  paper  concerning  Mr.  Myers  I 
had  read  in  the  Journal  and  now  love  to 
have  at  hand  to  read:  it  made  me  long 
to  have  much  talk  with  you  about  him 
and  about  the  thousand  things. 

There 's  a  curious  book  on  "  Personality  " 
I  came  across  the  other  day  which  has 
some  side-lights  in  it,  and  your  old  pupil. 
Miss  Puffer,  is  now  gallantly  approaching 
some  serious  questions:  wherein  you  will 
have  a  voice  and  which  interest  me  largely 
as  they  bear  upon  the  development  of  a 
new  and  supposedly  true  ^Esthetic. 

But  all  this  must  wait:  for  I  have 
written  already  too  long  in  the  wandering 
mood — only  intending  to  send  love  and 
blessing  to  the  House  of  James;  and  to 
avow,  yet  once  more,  myself  as  ever  faith- 
fully yours,  S.  W. 

Oh,  I  must  add  one  word  to  tell  you  that 
I  have  fallen  so  low  as  to  have  a  sort  of 
[  206  ] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

pride  in  having  been  really  ill:  and  main- 
taining the  practice  of  a  sort  of  deleterious 
Virtue.  The  result  seems  to  be  as  one 
might  suppose  excellent  corporeal  state, 
but  a  vast  spiritual  decay.  Or  as  I  said 
to  Frances  Parkman  the  other  day,  I  feel 
just  about  well  but  not  quite  solid.  She 
subsequently  asked  me  what  I  meant  by 
not  feeling  solid,  an  unanswerable  demand, 
for  it  was  to  define  a  negative. 

But  to-night  the  positive  state  has  set  in: 
for  the  moment  I  feel  solid,  and  discern 
it  to  be  the  capacity  for  having  wild  and 
foolish  impulses! 

Paris,  April  7,  1902. 

Dear  Friend,  —  I  mailed  a  letter  to 
Liverpool  as  I  landed,  to  prove  that  the 
sea  could  not  drown  a  friend's  regard  (but 
I  fear  otherwise  a  brackish  contribution) 
and  then  went  up  to  London  for  Good 
Friday  and  Easter:  everyone  whom  I 
knew  being  in  the  country  for  the  holidays. 
[  207  ] 


LETTERS 

But  I  had  a  wonderful  three  days:  for  I 
found  a  balcony  overlooking  the  Thames, 
from  which  I  stared  day  and  night:  and 
for  the  rest  took  counsel  with  the  old 
Poets,  and  lovely  young  Poets,  in  the  Ab- 
bey, who  told  me  once  more  that  they 
did  not  die — and  indeed  not  Spenser's 
gentle  wreaths,  nor  Michael  Drayton's 
tiny  fillet,  are  needed  when  one  canto,  or 
one  sonnet,  keeps  watch  with  Eternity. 

Then,  when  I  had  forgotten  the  ship,  I 
came  hither,  and  this  time  by  way  of  New- 
haven  and  Dieppe,  which  was  all  I  fancied 
it  would  be ;  for  I  had  that  lovely  run  to 
sea  by  the  way  of  Lewes  and  Newhaven, 
of  a  day  all  sunshine  and  soft  airs,  and  came 
upon  France  with  a  new  surprise.  The 
transition  is  wonderful,  is  n't  it  ?  For  the 
lovely  sentimental  landscape  of  England 
always  has  a  touch,  as  it  were,  of  the  Lydia 
Languish  note  in  it,  and  it  is  reserved  for 
France  to  give  to  nature  those  acute  touches 
[  208  ] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

which  enhance  its  typical  verity.  One  feels 
that  abiding  sense  of  form  which  puts  ele- 
gance into  the  sheep-pastures  and  a  classic 
intimation  into  every  farm-yard.  The  tree- 
trunks  were  black  in  the  early  humid  air 
of  spring,  and  the  small  green  leaves  and 
buds  shone  against  them  with  the  acute- 
ness  of  their  new  life.  I  never  was  so  over- 
whelmed with  the  look  of  France  before. 


On  board  the  Saxonia,  for  home. 
June,  1902. 

Dear  Friend,  —  I  have  had  two  great 
days  here  in  mid-ocean,  for  it  is  only  here, 
in  the  midst  of  the  great  fragrant  sea,  that 
your  book  and  I  have  met.  The  copy  you 
sent  me  did  not  come,  nor  yet  one  I  or- 
dered in  the  common  mart  but  day  before 
yesterday.  I  made  bold  (hearing  the  Edin- 
boro  accent  in  a  tall,  slim  man's  speech) 
to  scrape  acquaintance,  and  in  two  min- 
utes he  asked  me  if  I  knew  you,  —  had  I 
[  209  ] 


LETTERS 

read  your  book,  —  would  I  read  his  while 
he  finished  a  piece  of  work !  That  was  high 
fortune,  and  I  have  had  it  at  a  splendid 
pitch  of  solitude  as  one  seldom  has  a  book, 
and  read  word  by  word  this  unique  story 
of  the  spirit  of  man.  There  is  no  need  to 
say  how  greatly  I  have  been  moved  by  it, 
for  such  a  store  of  human  faith  and  feel- 
ing heaped  high  in  a  granary  would  in  it- 
self be  enough ;  but  brought  into  a  sort 
of  synthesis,  with  wonderful  side-lights 
and  cross-lights  of  insight  and  sympathy, 
—  carried  through  the  varied  forms  of  re- 
ligion and  philosophy,  —  allowed  a  place 
in  all  conditions  of  men,  and  finally  ad- 
mitted to  bear  testimony  to  a  possible  state 
beyond  this  present  state,  —  this  consti- 
tutes a  work  of  infinite  importance,  and 
in  regard  to  which  I  must  speak  with  you 
at  length,  and  not  in  this  brief  murmuring 
way.  Only  one  word  as  to  its  beauty  of 
statement,  its  tone,  its  fire,  and  its  recog- 
[   2IO  ] 


OF   MRS.  WHITMAN 

nition  of  that  increasing  passion  of  pur- 
pose for  which  the  soul  stands  at  last  in 
spite  of  all  its  sighs  and  weak  complain- 
ings. 

I  am  overwhelmed  by  the  form  as  well 
as  the  substance  of  the  work,  —  with  a  sort 
of  humor  which  keeps  the  level  of  the  ex- 
cellent earth,  and  yet  imaginatively  dis- 
closes the  sky.   Briefly,  a  great  book.  .  .  . 

But  London  left  some  possessions  in  my 
keeping,  and  gave  me  a  clue  to  many  things 
and  people  unknown  before,  —  a  slightly 
varied  horizon  line,  as  it  were,  and  the 
possibility  of  contact  with  things  belonging 
to  my  work  and  to  my  dreams.  So  I  am 
returning  not  only  better,  but  greatly  re- 
freshed. Still  wondering ;  **  for  it  is  in  won- 
der that  the  owl  is  great!"  S.  W. 

September  12,  1903. 

That  letter  with  the  high  note  of  tri- 
umph in  it  was  an  awful  pleasure  to  receive, 
[an  ] 


LETTERS 

dear  friend,  and  if  I  had  written  to  you  as 
often  as  I  have  had  the  impulse,  I  should 
have  freed  my  mind  at  intervals  not  always 
down  on  the  calendar !  But  as  I  have  said 
to  you,  the  writing  nerve  had  been  a  good 
deal  over-worked  and  is  one  of  the  last  to 
respond  accordingly:  and  I  have  long,  un- 
recorded, silent  sessions  of  thought  and 
remembrance  which  leave  no  visible  sign, 
but  which,  in  a  more  subtilized  world,  will 
be  accepted  as  a  glorified  equivalent  of 
"these  lines."  Nor  will  the  antique  pencil 
intervene,  though  for  present  purposes  I 
hold  it  to  be  a  great  and  good  weapon, 
with  less  friction  between  its  point  and 
one's  mind  than  any  writing-tool  after  all : 
and  needing  sharpening  less  often  than 
one's  wit.  At  all  events,  it  is  finely  adapted 
to  telling  of  rather  a  mis-spent  Summer, 
as  I  could  n't  quite  summon  up  the  vigor  I 
aspired  to  possess,  in  order  that  great  works 
might  flow  forth  from  the  brush. 
[  212  ] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

However,  it  is  not  easy  to  feel  dull  after 
all,  and  I  humored  my  incapacities  by 
dreaming — a  rare  luxury — and  reading: 
(a  thing  I  have  not  done  much  of  since 
childhood's  hours)  finishing  just  now  those 
six  volumes  of  letters  which  may  be  called 
Byron's  heart.  In  that  thrice  molten  caul- 
dron may  be  said  to  have  been  consumed 
the  1 8th  century's  terrible  (terrible  because 
false)  legacies,  one  by  one:  till  like  Shel- 
ley's, the  heart  alone  survived;  and  was,  in 
spite  of  life's  abuses  and  robberies,  the  heart 
of  a  little  child.  To  have,  as  it  were,  a  vio- 
lin obligato  played  in  the  eight  hundred 
letters,  on  the  single  string  of  one's  own 
consciousness,  is  a  unique  experience  in  lit- 
erature, and  rare  in  life.  So  one  dreams, 
profoundly  involved  with  it.  But  mark  the 
dangers  of  such  an  experience!  One  day 
last  week  I  spent  with  a  coterie  of  the 
really  cultured,  and  had  to  pay  high  for  a 
simple  expression  of  what  to  me  constituted 
[  213  ] 


LETTERS 

a  great  poet.  Only  E.  Lawrence,  with  that 
swift  infantile  demand  for  the  first-rate, 
seemed  able  to  consider  inspiration  at  a 
fixed  valuation !  They  must  regard  it 
through  an  ethical  glass,  "darkly."   .   .  . 

All  this  writing,  and  not  one  word  yet 
of  that  splendid  deliverance  of  yours  on 
the  Lynching  Madness! — a  great  piece  of 
high  statement.  I  should  like  to  sit  down 
and  talk  with  you  for  a  year  about  it  all. 
As  one  looks  at  the  Southern  problem  with 
its  hydra-headed  dangers  and  difficulties,  to 
me  the  most  difficult  and  dangerous  ele- 
ment (because  at  once  the  most  subtle  and 
widespread)  is  the  way  in  which  a  cen- 
tury of  life  with  the  institution  of  slavery 
produced  (unconsciously)  a  sort  of  mental 
lesion  in  the  whites  as  a  result  of  main- 
taining an  admitted  wrong.  All  my  life  I 
have  noticed  that  at  a  certain  moment  with 
a  cultivated  and  thoughtful  Southerner,  his 
mental  ray  would,  as  one  may  say,  deflect; 
[  214  ] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

it  was  when  the  "  Institution'*  was  spoken 
of.  I  suppose  this  is  happening  to  us  all 
as  the  result  of  our  bad  ways — but  this 
phenomenon  is  common  to  a  whole  pop- 
ulation, and  has  to  be  reckoned  with  for 
generations  yet  to  come. 

After  Mr.  Boott*s  Memorial  Service. 

Sunday  night.   May  8,  1904. 

It  was  perfect  this  afternoon,  dear  friend: 
full  of  that  beauty  which  only  human 
hearts  can  distill;  and  your  words — skilled, 
reserved,  and  passionate  —  were  like  the 
sunset  of  that  day  9 1  years  long. 

Death  seems  more  and  more  incidental 
I  find,  with  each  new  taking  off:  and  as 
you  see,  it  now  almost  escapes  mention, 
we  are  so  occupied  with  emerging  life. 


[215] 


LETTERS 

PASSAGES   FROM   A   NOTE-BOOK 

1885 

January  i . 

Every  year  is  in  some  occult  way  pro- 
phetic of  itself.  It  enters  with  a  certain 
assertion  of  its  character. 

January  2. 

I  find  in  old  age  that  what  most  people 
want  is  comfort,  or  lower  still,  to  be  com- 
fortable. 

January  3 . 

I  read  four  Cantos  of  the  Inferno  with 
Mr.  Norton  this  morning,  and  I  see  now 
why  I  waited  till  middle  age  before  having 
it  in  the  original.  Reading  Dante  at  forty- 
two  is  like  life  witnessing  to  life. 

January  4. 

If  it  were  not  for  Faith,  Hope  would 
drag  her  anchor. 

[  216  ] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

January  9. 

Roughly  speaking,  people  may  be  di- 
vided into  three  classes,  so  far  as  the  fabric 
of  their  nature  is  concerned :  coarse  people, 
coarse  people  who  like  fine  people,  and 
fine  people.  The  middle  class  naturally  pro- 
duces much  confusion,  for  a  taste  is  easily 
mistaken  for  a  quality  of  character. 

January  10. 

The  question  that  lies  behind,  "  Is  it  ever 
right  to  tell  a  lie?'*  is.  What  is  truth?  It 
surely  can  never  be  right  to  do  wrong  ;  and 
so  if  there  ever  be  a  lie  which  it  is  right 
to  tell,  it  must  be  because  the  truth  is  served 
by  it.  And  when  a  noble  person  tells  what 
is  called  a  lie  I  believe  it  is  because  he 
sees  further  and  knows  more. 

January  13. 

One  sees  constantly  how  much  more 
sensitive  to  physical  rather  than  spiritual 
[  217  ] 


LETTERS 

suffering,  ordinary  natures  are,  for  them- 
selves and  others.  Such  will  give  more  sym- 
pathy for  a  cut  finger  than  for  a  broken 
heart. 

January  14. 

Women,  having  been  educated  within 
the  home,  have  almost  no  idea  of  what 
may  be  called  official  responsibility;  can 
do  what  appears  to  be  a  dishonorable  act, 
can  assume  authority  without  warrant,  in 
short,  seem  wanting  in  the  moral  sense  so 
far  as  their  corporate  action  is  concerned, 
when  individually  each  one  may  be  an  in- 
tensely moral  person.  In  this  respect  we 
see  what  the  "  code  of  honor,''  so  called, 
has  done  for  men ;  it  has  upheld  the  honor 
of  mutual  relations,  has  given  a  standard  for 
the  dealings  of  one  with  another. 

January  23. 

One  wonders  over  the  many  people  who 
never  seem    to  see  the  responsibility  of 

[  218  ] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

omitted  acts ;  to  whom  a  thing  done  is  the 
only  actuality.  I  believe  there  will,  in  the 
final  adjustment,  be  more  blame  laid  to 
the  minus  than  to  the  plus  account. 

January  25. 

What  we  want  to  get  at  first  in  regard 
to  ourselves,  and  with  reference  to  the  con- 
duct of  our  lives,  is  what  we  are ;  what,  in 
the  last  analysis,  is  the  fulcrum.  I  cannot 
see  so  far  anything  so  reasonable  as  Cole- 
ridge's hypothesis  of  man  as  Will;  and  if 
to  that  one  adds  Hinton's  conception  of 
Will  as  not  fi*ee  but  arbitrary,  so  long  as 
it  is  at  variance  with  the  Divine  Will,  and 
only  free  when  it  is  one  with  the  Divine, 
then  I  think  we  begin  to  understand  where 
we  are,  and  have  a  foot-hold  for  conduct. 

January  28. 

In  a  mutual  love  it  seems  as  if  what  one 
gave  would  be  like  Truth,  and  what  one 
received  like  Beauty. 

[  219  ] 


LETTERS 

February  6. 

Alas!  if  self-respect  in  America  is,  so  far, 
a  substitute  for  veneration. 

February  28. 

It  is  curious  how  the  demands  one  makes 
upon  Nature  change  with  age.  When  one 
is  young,  one  asks  at  her  hands  for  sym- 
pathy with  one's  moods,  for  correspond- 
ence. Later  one  expects  nothing:  but  is 
grateful  for  all  beauty  without  reference 
to  one's  self. 

March  4. 

With  two  days  of  warm  weather  the 
Spring  feeling  has  come,  and  that  is  Spring. 
Presently  the  Spring-passion  will  set  in, 
and  we  shall  know  that  strange  intense 
sense  of  oneness  with  the  visible  universe ; 
of  kinship  to  cloud  and  tree,  and  all  grow- 
ing things.  Sometimes  I  have  known  this 
vision  of  Spring  to  come  by  means  of  per- 
haps one  sound,  or  one  ray  of  sunshine 
[  220  ] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

falling  in  a  special  way  across  the  floor,  a 
sound  or  a  ray  that  was  difl^erent  from  the 
Winter's  manner,  and  held  the  whole  Sum- 
mer solstice  in  its  prophetic  assurances.  I 
remember  once  having  this  happen  in  early 
February  in  a  store  in  Winter  Street :  where 
I  happened  to  look  out  of  the  window  and 
my  eyes  met  the  eyes  of  June  which  left 
them  wet  as  with  June's  showers. 

Od  Sense  of  Honor. 

March  lo. 

In  our  civilization  so  far  this  is  the  great 
lack;  and  sometimes  gives  one  a  sense  of 
the  most  painful  discouragement.  But  one 
must  remember  that  honor  is  the  flower, 
and  demands  a  long  period  of  lusty  leafage 
before  it  can  appear.  The  practical  man 
regards  honor  as  FalstafF  did:  "Can  honor 
set  a  leg,  or  heal  the  grief  of  a  wound  ? " 
"  Nor 

[  221  ] 


LETTERS 

March  1 9. 

Going  into  Society,  which  has  so  many 
different  phases  and  meanings  and  helps 
and  hindrances,  has  at  all  events  a  very  great 
effect  on  one's  imagination,  one  feels  set  on 
fire  by  this  "aggregated  humanity  "  as  H. 
James  called  it,  and  proceeds  to  re-construct 
the  world,  as  one  perceives  the  presence  of 
new  classes  and  types.  What  was  called  in- 
dividualism has  come  to  an  end,  I  fancy, 
by  a  natural  limit,  the  result  of  pursuing 
an  exclusive  method.  To  be  a  man  at  all, 
every  man  must  be  all  the  other  men.  Else 
he  will  fail  to  fulfil  his  true  nature.  Pushed 
to  its  extreme  the  individual  proves  to  be 
but  a  slender  personage,  lacking  the  large 
typical  quality.  This  is  as  true  in  Art  as  in 
Life.  All  good  Art  work  has  as  its  very 
foundation,  the  establishment  of  attributes 
which  are  both  individual  and  typical. 
The  individual  qualities  alone  can  give  no 
completeness  ;  the  object  is  left  un-r elated, 
[  222  ] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

and  is  that  curiosity  in  thought,  a  specimen, 
not  a  type. 

April  3. 

In  a  man  of  principle,  to  yield  a  point 
is  not  to  surrender,  it  is  to  wait. 

April  4. 

In  a  shallow  nature  there  is  a  tendency 
to  be  solemn  over  trivialities  and  trivial  in 
the  presence  of  solemnity. 

April  7. 

I  have  been  reading  Henri  Amiel's 
Journal  Intime  and  thinking  so  much  about 
it,  and  perhaps  more  about  him.  He  with 
a  few  others,  such  as  Obermann  and  De 
Guerin,  may  be  said  to  give  expression 
to  the  suffering  of  those  who  cannot  ex- 
press that  stress  of  the  soul  which  feels  and 
longs  and  desires,  but  cannot  come  forth 
into  any  tangible  shape  in  any  of  the  forms 
of  Art.  Among  the  limitations  which  gird 
in  humanity,  this  must  be  reckoned  as  one 
[  223  ] 


LETTERS 

of  them,  always  a  most  pathetic  form  of 
suffering :  and  when  so  tender  and  brilliant 
a  spirit  as  Amiel  is  born  into  the  heritage 
of  the  minor  key,  and  speaks  in  that  lan- 
guage which  "is  a  cry,**  it  seems  to  show 
the  deeps  of  tragic  existence.  To  fight 
under  a  positive  despair  is  tragic  enough; 
but  this  negative  combat — it  is  failure  from 
the  first.  Amiel  and  his  companions  stand 
as  types  of  the  sadness  which  lies  in  abor- 
tive power ;  of  which  there  is  a  touch  in 
each  one  of  us,  and  in  the  world  of  nature 
as  well  as  of  human  nature,  it  has  its  piti- 
less correspondence. 

April  1 6. 

In  Brookline  the  Spring  had  many  mes- 
sages ;  but  nothing  was  so  beautiful  as  the 
spirit  of  prophecy  with  which  the  air  was 
full.  We  add  to  our  knowledge  in  practical 
ways  little  by  little :  but  whole  years  of 
careful  acquisition  are  beggared  by  one 
such  day  of  intimations. 
[  224  ] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

April  1 8. 

Read  the  cantos  which  seemed  to  me 
the  most  terrible  of  all  the  terrible  ones ;  — 
where  in  the  gulfs  of  degraded  humanity 
there  is  that  chatter  of  wickedness ;  where 
suffering  has  lost  all  dignity  and  woe  has 
no  weight.  This  ceases  to  be  human  and 
is  death. 

April  20. 

I  never  miss  a  day  in  the  "  diary"  with- 
out being  sorry,  because  it  represents  at 
least  one  moment  for  the  arts  of  peace  and 
quiet,  in  the  midst  of  these  tearing  days 
when  one  flies  from  one  so-called  necessity 
to  another.  One's  thoughts  and  feelings 
have  to  be  kept  like  naughty  children  in 
corners  meanwhile,  because  they  interfere 
with  the  routine  of  the  body  social,  or  pol- 
itic, or  whatever.  It's  a  pretty  difficult  life 
to  live,  this  of  the  serious  19th  Century, 
which  is  just  the  reason  one  finds  it  so 
[  225  ] 


LETTERS 

much  worth  living   I  suppose,  as  no  job 
worth  doing  was  ever  easy. 

May  5. 

When  one  remembers  what  imagination 
really  is,  one  sees  why  it  has  played  so 
large  a  part  among  all  successful  people, 
the  practical  men  of  science  as  well  as  the 
poets.  To  see  things  as  they  are,  or  things 
in  relation  to  each  other ; — it  takes  imagi- 
nation to  do  this.  Or  again,  given  the 
broken  chain,  to  find  —  to  construct  the 
missing  link.  Mathematics  cannot  do  this; 
nor  logic;  only  the  breath  of  genius  can 
sweep  the  required  notes  out  of  the  mute 
strings.  '*  Out  of  three  sounds,"  says  Brown- 
ing:— 

"Out  of  three  sounds,  he  frame,  not  a  fourth  sound,  but  a 


star.' 


So  much  of  the  culture  of  to-day,  —  of 

all  time  perhaps,  —  goes  to  quicken  the 

aesthetic     sensibility     without     enlarging 

one's   humanity.    It   is   a  dreadful   thing 

[  226  ] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

when  one's  sensations  are  more  acute  than 
one's  emotions,  where  the  skin  is  pricked 
sooner  than  the  heart  is  touched. 

Of  •*  Esoteric  Buddhism." 

May  17. 

It  seems  like  a  gigantic  web  hung  in 
the  sky  of  existence,  into  which  are  embroi- 
dered a  thousand  things  sympathetic  to 
the  Hfe  of  humanity ;  but  which  neverthe- 
les,s  fails  to  compass  the  soul's  conception 
(as  we  Westerners  hold  it)  of  man,  of  God; 
and  of  God  and  man  in  relation  to  each 
other.  ...  I  fail  to  find  what  seems  to  me 
a  logical  outcome  of  service  and  devotion. 

May  25. 

Nothing  helps  one  so  much  as  to  be 
helped  in  one's  strong  points. 

May  26. 

In  this  age  we  are  all  doing  our  best  to 
discover  how  we  may  help  humanity  in 
[  227  ] 


LETTERS 

its  more  immediate  temporal  needs.  "Wash 
him  and  dress  him,"  said  Mr.  Dick,  "Feed 
him,"  said  Mr.  Dick!  But  by  and  bye  we 
shall  get,  by  searching  for  them,  fresh  indi- 
cations of  what  to  do  for  the  souls  of  men. 
The  province  of  human  love  and  sympathy 
has  never  been  wholly  estimated  yet;  and 
there  are  fresh  springs  in  its  wide  pastures. 

August  13. 

I  felt  this  morning  as  if  I  had  never 
seen  the  sea  nor  the  sky  before.  It  was 
quite  new,  wholly  new. 

Sometimes  I  think  that  this  power  of 
finding  the  familiar  thing  so  fresh  is  a  stout 
proof  of  the  vital  principle  in  ourselves. 
They  change  not;  but  this  living,  ever- 
changing  soul  of  man  relates  itself  anew, 
with  every  day's  access  of  power  or  possi- 
bility. 


[  ^^-8  ] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

August  15. 

I  have  been  reading  Dora  Greenweirs 
Life  of  Lacordaire,  and  re-reading  those 
beautiful  passionate  revealings  of  himself 
in  it.  I  like  to  know  that  Lacordaire  lived 
in  this  19th  Century  of  ours,  and  that  vv^ith 
our  restless  quests,  our  intense  individual- 
ism, and  all  that  flings  us  out  from  the 
centre,  we  have  still  close  beside  us  this 
example  of  all  that  was  noblest  in  the  old 
immolation,  and  this  witness  to  the  undy- 
ing principle  of  solidarity  and  sacrifice. 
What  Mr.  Morley  says  of  the  strange 
disregard  of  sin  which  Emerson  showed, 
marks,  it  seems  to  me,  the  difference 
between  those  who  look  at  life  tranquilly, 
having  a  large  hope;  and  those  who  look 
at  it  with  strong  crying  and  tears,  with  no 
less  hope,  it  may  be,  but  with  an  infinite 
compassion.  We  need  them  both,  but  as 
most  of  life  is  spent  in  the  blood  and  dust 
of  the  arena,  there  cannot  well  be  too  much 
[  229  ] 


LETTERS 

of  the  spending  and  being  spent,  which  is 
the  watch-word  of  Paul,  and  of  Lacor- 
daire. 

November  19. 

I  have  smiled  yet  once  more  over  the 
wise  ones  who  find  it  so  easy  to  settle  ques- 
tions, "once  for  air*  as  they  say:  as  if  one 
might  work  out  the  problems,  write  out 
the  answers  and  go  on  to  glory !  But  to  my 
thinking,  most  questions  are  **  leading 
ones,"  in  that  they  lead  to  others  which 
confront  one  in  their  stead.  How  indeed 
should  it  be  otherwise,  when  circumstance 
is  a  rolling  wheel  and  life  a  progressive 
power?  Peace  must  be  found  on  other 
terms  than  having  settled  questions. 

November  25. 

If  one  could  know  what  are  the  real 
exceptions  to  the  rule,  what  God  would 
count  as  exceptions,  one  would  know  all 
perhaps. 

[  230  ] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

November  29. 

It  has  come  to  me  that  Gratitude  is  a 
quality  which  comes  only  with  age  and  the 
growth  of  it  keeps  even  step  with  our  ad- 
vancing foot.  I  can  remember  when  the 
very  word,  as  a  child,  or  even  later,  jarred 
on  me,  and  now  it  seems  as  if  most  of  one's 
time  were  spent  in  being  profoundly  grate- 
ful for  each  least  gift. 

December  5. 

If  goodness  could  only  be  known  as  what 
it  really  is,  —  an  act  of  purification,  a  sac- 
rifice in  the  true  sense  of  that  heavenly 
word !  Indeed  the  misconception  of  the 
idea  of  sacrifice  shows  that  there  has  been 
the  strange  substitution  of  a  poor  negation 
in  the  place  of  a  rich  affirmation ;  it  is 
thought  t®  be  a  giving  up  instead  of  a 
taking  on. 

December  15. 

I  am  not  sure,  but  I  think  that  the  high- 
est aspects  of  truth  for  each  soul  must  be 
[  231  ] 


LETTERS 

found  by  it ;  they  cannot  be  told,  no  more 
than  the  sun  can  be  perfectly  described  to 
a  blind  man.  The  truth  of  the  mountain, 
—  one  can  go  to  it,  but  it  cannot  be  fetched 
down,  cannot  be  brought  to  the  compre- 
hension of  those  who  are  in  the  valley. 

Those  who  meet  on  any  Mount  of 
Transfiguration  (which  I  take  to  mean  a 
certain  plane  of  spiritual  and  intellectual 
elevation),  can  speak  with  one  another  of 
these  sublime  aspects  of  Truth,  but  only 
with  one  another. 

December  23. 

According  to  physical  law,  a  chain  is 
only  as  strong  as  its  weakest  link;  but  a 
man's  soul  is  as  strong  as  its  strongest  one, 
for  by  that  he  holds  to  Strength  itself. 

December  25. 

Perhaps  the  sympathy  that  is  the  best 
and  finest  is  that  which  sympathizes  with 
not  one  point  or  portion,  but  just  gives  one 

C  232  ] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

a  sense  of  being  understood,  and  leaves 
one's  self  to  make  the  application.  When 
I  have  just  made  a  difficult  step,  and  an 
unconscious  friend  lays  a  hand  in  mine, 
she  does  not  know  it,  but  she  has  hung  a 
garland  on  the  door  of  my  resolution. 

December  28. 

The  difference  between  ordinary  people 
and  geniuses  is  that  the  first  tell  us  what 
we  know  that  we  know,  and  the  latter 
what  we  do  not  know  that  we  know ! 

December  31. 

This  a  good  day  for  the  best  pleasure  of 
Memory,  to  remember  the  future! 


[  ^33  ] 


LETTERS 

UNDATED  NOTES 

Keep  the  feast  of  remembrance :  —  to 
stay  in  the  shrine  of  memory  hoping  to 
come  out  of  it  sanctified  for  work  for 
those  I  love ;  for  that  great  throb  of  en- 
deavor which  we  call  life. 

After  all,  there  is  but  one  thing  which 
one  soul  may  do  for  another,  and  to  be 
assured  that  one  has  helped  ever  so  little 
in  the  life  of  the  spirit,  this  is  happiness. 

Until  a  life  has  lapsed  into  a  certain  per- 
spective it  seems  impossible  to  free  it  from 
the  mortal  mists  which  obscure,  or  the 
mortal  stains  which  tarnish  its  brightness. 

But  with  the  larger  perspective  of  death 
one  sees  the  whole  of  the  beloved,  and 
finds  clues  and  intimations  which  bring 
[  234  ] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

one  into  a  deeper  knowledge,  a  truer  inti- 
macy and  one  dares  hope  —  a  larger  love. 

Life  consists  in  one's  convictions  evinced 
in  a  million  acts,  and  often  over  the  hot 
coals  of  service,  of  rebellion,  of  self-pity 
and  —  of  self-contempt. 

Whether  one  is  glad  or  sad  one  must  live 
out  into  the  current,  pay  life's  glad  "arrears 
of  pain,  darkness,  and  cold;"  work,  act, 
wonder  and  strive  mightily,  to  say  nothing 
of  witnessing  and  in  some  sense  sharing 
the  myriad  other  lives  which  are  going  on 
at  every  hand.  So  I  seem  to  have  lived 
years  in  every  moment  of  this  summer  and 
to  have  listened  to  a  silence  which  was 
deeper  and  more  vocal  than  any  speech. 

You  will  find  a  new  impulse  and  a  new 
opportunity ;  for  the  heavenly  Communion 
with  those  perfected  ones  must  I  believe 
[  235  ] 


LETTERS 

make  the  path  clearer,  the  work  more 
worth  the  doing,  the  hope  more  transcend- 
ent. 

We  go  on  and  live,  while  at  the  core  it 
seems  as  if  one's  heart  stood  still.  One 
thanks  God  that  the  world  cannot  see  be- 
low the  surface ;  but  one  thanks  Him,  ah ! 
how  much  more  deeply,  that  a  friend  can. 

Say  to  yourself  that  God  is  not  punishing 
you,  but  that  because  of  broken  laws  some- 
where, you  are  set  to  work  out  the  pen- 
alty; but  just  there,  in  that  bitterness  of 
experience,  there,  O  immortal  child,  lies 
the  divine  opportunity  !  The  patience,  the 
faith,  or  even  the  dumb,  sad  endurance  you 
can  bring  to  bear,  shall  bring  your  soul  to 
Him. 

If  there  are  sad  holes  in  my  armour,  I 
pray  that  they  may  let  in  only  the  sword 
of  the  Spirit,  with  wounds  that  save. 

C  n^  ] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

All  the  pretences  and  make-shifts  of  our 
grudging  life  vanish  before  the  advancing 
tread  of  Faith  and  Love. 

In  these  years  I  have  learned  many  beau- 
tiful things,  have  heard  voices  straight  out 
of  the  heavens,  have  known  what  it  is  to 
feel  the  very  heart  of  grief  and  in  that 
heart  to  be  comforted  and  to  be  able  to 
go  on. 

The  going  forth  of  an  incomparable 
friend  makes  one  aware  of  another  world 
than  this,  and  makes  one  endeavor  the 
more  to  catch  notes  of  that  strain  to  which 
life  in  all  worlds  is  set. 

It  is  as  if  that  sweet  mystery,  the  pain 
of  all  incomparable  loss,  came  sweeping 
upon  the  heart  and  making  manifest  the 
things  of  the  spirit,  dimly  felt  before,  but 
now  made  sure  in  the  knowledge  of  one 
who  has  passed  beyond  the  veil. 
[  237  ] 


LETTERS 

I  am  sure  there  will  come  to  you  cer- 
tain new  and  precious  realizations,  through 
his  life  as  it  is  now  lived,  beyond  our 
knowledge,  but  not  beyond  our  faith  and 
our  glorious  intimations.  You  will  have 
new  light  and  new  joy  I  must  believe,  and 
so  will  keep  ever  higher  and  nearer  to 
him. 

Only  those  who  have  understood  pain 
and  discerned  joy  can  speak  with  one  an- 
other, and  comfort  and  sustain. 

It  takes  so  long  for  the  victory  to  count 
to  one's  self  but  it  counts,  and  though  you 
long  for  the  flowers,  the  work  you  are 
doing  in  the  desert  is  what  will  end  by 
making  your  soul  strong  and  your  heart 
ready.  By  steadfastness  and  by  self-sur- 
render, not  yet  perhaps,  but  some  happy 
day  .  .  .  you  will  put  your  hand  in  God's 
and    know   a    power    of  endurance    and 

[  238  ] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

achievement  which  is  yours  because  it  is 
His. 

Meantime,  ah !  it  is  hard  and  I  long  to 
come  and  help,  but  one  must  be  brave  also 
for  those  whom  they  love,  and  I  should 
hate  myself  if  I  did  not  urge  you  to  this 
life  of  service  and  abnegation  which  seems 
to  me  the  only  true  way. 

You  are  justified  in  judging  people  by 
their  own  standards;  but  you  have  no  right 
to  judge  the  standards  themselves,  that  is 
God's  prerogative  and  lies  between  Him 
and  souls. 

All  Saints ;  —  each  year  one  hangs  a  fur- 
ther wreath  on  the  doors  of  Hope. 

I  am  still  under  the  spell  of  that  long 

deep   ocean    swell   of  sustained   emotion 

speaking  in  a  hundred  cantos,  and  yet  as 

one  mighty  voice.    But  I  shall  reread  it 

[  239  ] 


LETTERS 

presently;  for  after  one  has  once  read 
Dante,  one  must  go  on  reading  him  for- 
ever. 

Any  change  of  circumstance,  or  any 
splendor  of  necessity,  can  only  be  under- 
stood and  accepted  by  virtue  of  that  slow 
preparation,  which  comes  with  steadfast- 
ness in  the  prosaic  press  of  everyday  life. 

There  come  days  wholly  belonging  to 
the  inner  life,  being  in  a  place  deep  and 
strange  and  fair.  A  revelation  of  the  fears 
and  aptitudes  of  the  spirit. 

To  keep  the  right  relation  of  things  is 
the  way  of  salvation. 

It  is  partly  because  I  have  lived  so  long, 

partly  because  of  the  increasing  purposes 

of  life,  that  I  must  live  so  much  by  signs 

and  symbols  as  a  matter  of  necessity.  And 

[  240  ] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

yet  sometimes  I  feel  as  if  it  had  become 
almost  a  matter  of  choice.  Not  for  the 
free  life  lived  normally  from  start  to  finish 
of  course,  but  where  one*s  life  must  be 
hewn  and  shaped,  and  one  does  not  claim 
the  long  rich  opportunity  of  daily  relations, 
it  is  possible  that  a  word,  a  look,  a  touch 
of  the  hand,  lives  like  a  star  above  time's 
horizon,  and  star-like  there  endures. 

One  paints,  not  according  to  the  way 
one  decides,  but  according  to  the  thing  it- 
self, which  settles  its  own  terms:  making 
one  begin  or  end  after  a  manner  which 
works  itself  out  like  the  spirit  which  blow- 
eth  where  it  listeth.  The  only  thing  one 
can  do  is  to  get  more  and  more  life-stuff 
into  one,  so  that  it  may  blow  through  our 
work  and  purify  and  inform  and  anoint  it. 

On   either  side  of  the   street,  will   or 
knowledge  is  at  work,  not  with  the  ex- 
[  241  ] 


LETTERS 

pected  demand;  that  were  easy  to  cope 
with,  but  with  the  unlooked-for  and  the 
not  -  possibly  -  to  -  have  -  been  -  allowed  for. 
There  is  a  curious  spiritual  recoil  from 
these  just  attacks :  yet  I  am  persuaded  that 
for  me  the  way  lies  here ;  and  presently  I 
shall  be  better  adjusted,  at  all  events  be- 
yond making  these  little  plaints. 

Nelson  was  the  last  of  romantic  heroes : 
the  times  change  and  we  with  them,  but 
the  evolution  was  a  slow  one,  and  it  is 
only  now  that  we  find  ourselves  demand- 
ing some  new  splendors,  such  as  shone  in 
Gordon  and  in  Lincoln,  who  fought  not 
for  the  glory  of  nations,  but  for  the  good 
of  man;  who  finally  so  smote  the  chord  of 
self  that  it  passed  in  trembling  out  of  sight. 
Nelson,  in  love  as  in  war  acting  upon  the 
flaming  impulse  of  a  man  of  genius,  sub- 
jective, warm,  passionate,  tender,  simple, 
amazingly  child-like,  —  all  this  he  surely 
[  242  ] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

was :  and  below  all  detractions  and  accusa- 
tions. Lady  Hamilton,  with  a  heart  which 
recognized  and  adored  him;  it's  a  simple 
story,  but  the  proportions  make  it  forever 
heroic. 

Also  of  Nelson. 

So  mighty  a  tale,  so  deep  a  human  tra- 
gedy can  only  be  told  by  a  tongue  of  fire,  and 
this  like  love,  many  waters  cannot  quench 
.  .  .  my  gratitude  for  striking  once  more 
and  in  such  high  measure,  the  note  which 
sets  human  sympathy  vibrating,  which  re- 
veals the  grandeur  of  human  souls,  and 
which  out  of  the  world's  great  piercing 
nettle  of  danger  plucks  a  fresh  flower  of 
safety. 

Ah!  that  great  wave  of  re-assurance 
which  comes  to  one's  aid  here  and  there. 
Perhaps  one  would  die  of  despair  if  it  were 
not  for  that. 

[  ^43  ] 


LETTERS 

Those  wonderful  places  which  seem  to 
open  before  us  when  the  great  and  shining 
ones  go  forth,  that  silence  deeper  than 
sound,  where  deep  answers  to  deep. 

God  grant  that  we  may  keep  our  torches 
lighted  at  the  sacred  fire  of  that  altar  which 
our  hearts  have  reared. 

One  feels  an  unspeakable  yearning  as 
one  grows  to  feel  so  old,  to  do  much  for  all 
young  creatures,  those  who  are  so  full  of 
life  and  so  scant  of  knowledge,  whose 
slender  keels  already  grate  on  Life's  stony 
places. 

Life  more  strenuous  than  ever.  Change 
walks  with  visible  feet  in  many  places ; 
some  dreams  decay,  and  friends  go  away 
into  heaven.  One  stands  as  well  as  may  be 
at  one's  post,  but  this  closing  up  of  the 
ranks  and  going  on  is  serious  business. 
[  244  ] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

How  all  classes  may  find  an  equal  power 
of  giving  instead  of  getting;  that  is  close 
to  the  sweet  secret  of  Jesus  and  of  all  who 
live  to  serve  their  race. 

It  has  come  to  me  with  an  overwhelm- 
ing sense  in  this  last  year,  that  our  plan  of 
life,  the  doing  what  our  hand  is  set  to  do, 
demands  such  separation  from  all  we  hold 
most  dear.  With  it,  thank  God,  comes  a 
great  compensation,  that  those  we  love 
spite  of  this  abstinence  become  ever  more 
dear  and  more  essential. 

In  the  pursuit  of  truth  no  pain  retards, 
no  weariness  detains  the  ardent  chase ;  for- 
ever as  with  the  heroes  of  old,  will  those 
who  truly  love  truth  ''count  not  their  lives 
dear  to  them.'' 

There  comes  a  time  when  one  has  no- 
thing to  do  but  go  straight  on  living  on 
the  upper  side  of  a  sob,  below  which  lies 
[  HS  ] 


LETTERS 

the  fountain  of  tears.  Ah !  the  long  step 
from  memory  to  hope ;  a  lifetime  perhaps 
and  so  one  must  just  go  along. 

The  effect  of  literary  ill-breeding  is  pro- 
duced by  this  sort  of  modern  contempt  for 
the  old  forms  of  piety. 

In  writing  his  verses  or  painting  his  pic- 
tures, the  poet  or  artist  will  often  be  found 
manifesting  his  true  character  as  he  is  inca- 
pable of  manifesting  it  in  his  daily  conduct. 
Just  as,  per  contra ^  many  a  righteous  man, 
doing  what  he  conceives  to  be  his  whole 
duty,  causes  offence  and  hinders  the  moral 
life  of  others.  ...  Or  differently  stated, 
virtue  may  be  bred  in  one  man  by  the  brave 
subduing  of  his  temper,  his  tastes,  his  pas- 
sions ;  in  another  by  the  expression  of  that 
"passionate  purpose"  with  which  he  en- 
deavors to  make  manifest  the  beauty  and 
glory  of  the  world. 

[  246  ] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

We  learn  how  false  it  is  to  speak  of  ab- 
sence, how  true  it  is  to  feel  the  renewed 
presence  of  those  who  are  one  with  God. 
As  the  years  go  by  (years  how  long  I  do 
not  attempt  to  deny),  as  the  years  go  on, 
one  feels  the  reality  of  the  spiritual  world 
so  intensely,  the  nearness  and  sympathy  of 
those  souls  freed  from  this  lesser  life,  and 
we  yearn  upward  as  they  invite. 

Years,  like  people,  have  their  person- 
ality, and  stay  in  the  memory  clothed  with 
definite  attributes,  august  or  mean,  benefi- 
cent or  drear.  Sometimes  I  have  had  a 
strange  prophetic  sense  of  what  a  year  is 
to  be,  and  sometimes  it  slowly  betrays 
itself 

"The  throbbing  hope,  the  tacit  faith," 
of  Immortality. 

The  wonderful  biography  of  Mr.  Brooks. 
This  amazing  rich,  varied,  and  profoundly 
[  247  ] 


LETTERS 

interesting  story  of  the  life  and  develop- 
ment of  Phillips  Brooks  is  what  one  never 
expected  to  see,  but  the  persistent  gather- 
ing of  all  that  would  cast  a  ray  of  light  on 
him,  —  the  long  story  of  himself  in  the 
note-books,  early  kept,  and  by  means  of 
the  letters  and  general  material.  All  this 
seems  to  me  to  make  the  life  one  of  the 
three  or  four  great  biographies  of  our 
world.  From  end  to  end  you  feel  that 
great  creature  walking  and  working  and 
dreaming  with  abundant  eager  life  poured 
out  on  every  side,  a  sort  of  large  God-like 
movement  in  him  like  that  of  those  who 
lived  when  the  world  was  young. 

The  heart  which  beat  so  gallantly  with 
the  past  and  so  humanly  with  the  future  of 
our  race,  a  heart  which  shared  its  joys  and 
hopes  with  friends  and  country  and  with 
the  whole  round  world.  O  how  wonderful 
a  thing  is  the  genius  of  personality!  — 
[  ^8  ] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

as  it  were,  a  man's  self  projected;  every 
thought,  every  impulse,  fluent  and  active: 
personified  in  each  least  thing;  surviving 
in  each  breast  which  has  known  the  pro- 
found joy  of  its  presence.  Like  the  saints, 
"they  conquer  tho'  they  die,"  and  dying, 
survive  death,  for  this  beauty  of  soul,  like 
love,  as  God  lives,  is  permanent. 

There  are  memories  and  hopes  here, 
and  I  shall  not  easily  relinquish  life  among 
them.  Indeed,  when  one  is  as  old  as  I  am, 
one  takes  in  the  sail  of  adventure  and  finds 
one's  future  in  port  with  one's  friends. 

Foolish  persons  like  me  continue  to 
dream  dreams ;  and  so  long  as  that  is 
possible,  there  is  no  want  of  real  life,  its 
sighs,  its  tears,  its  large  and  sanguine  joys. 
Once  or  twice  lately,  too,  a  voice  has 
cried  to  me  from  the  pages  of  a  book 
which  has  spoken  in  tones  that  leave  me 
[  249  ] 


LETTERS 

less  forlorn.  Symonds  from  his  sunny  Al- 
pine windows  called  so  bravely  that  any 
one  hearing  him  must  be  struck  into  firmer 
courage. 

It 's  a  curiously  sound  sanity,  the  sanity 
of  a  sick  man.  The  steady  look  of  Ste- 
venson across  an  horizon  hardly  broader 
than  his  bed  has  a  majestic  health  in  it. 

The  summer  has  been  like  all  Beverly 
Farms  summers,  ...  I  will  not  recount 
it,  but  pour  it  rapidly  through  the  sieve 
of  forgetfulness  in  which  some  joys  will 
be  too  large  to  disappear  and  will  remain 
for  consolation.  But  my  complaint  of  this 
sort  of  life  is  fundamental.  It  is  not  work, 
it  is  not  play;  what,  then,  is  it? 

As  I  write,  there  is  that  feeling  in  the 
air  which  comes  with  the  serene  death  of 
Tennyson,  who  bore  with  him  the  asso- 
ciations of  one's  youth.  When  I  was  fif- 
[  250  ] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

teen  years  old  the  true  and  tender  beauty 
of  "  In  Memoriam  '*  was  a  deep  experience 
to  me.  It  was  like  a  boat  sailing  in  the 
deep  sea  of  reverent  doubt  and  steering 
right  onward.  And  in  the  hot  pangs  and 
woundings  of  youthful  emotion,  this  level 
look  along  life,  its  jeopardies,  its  goals, 
calmed  and  sustained  the  spirit. 

I  send  you  the  gratitude  which  one 
keeps  for  those  who  detect  all  that  "one 
fain  would  be  and  is  not,'*  a  gratitude 
spoken  not  in  words,  but  in  certain  strange 
unshed  tears. 

I  watched  the  clouds  or  painted  them, 
and  had  waves  of  the  old  divine  revelations 
of  youth  float  over  me.  Then  I  came  back, 
but  something  of  all  I  had  felt  came  back 
with  me. 

Common  life  among  one's  friends  is  like 
a  great  symphony,  with  the  movements 

[251  ] 


LETTERS 

glad  or  sad,  but  always  momentous ;  full 
of  the  rushing  mighty  wind  of  experience, 
resonant  with  grief  and  courage.  After  one 
has  lived  fifty  years,  the  difference  is  as  the 
difference  between  a  single  instrument  and 
an  orchestra. 

We  are  living  in  a  time  which  is  so  full 
of  the  breath  of  the  Spirit  that  we  cannot 
afford  to  miss  His  words  spoken  into  the 
ear  of  this  eager,  blundering,  yet  seeking 
generation. 

In  this  strange  dusty  day  so  few  pray  in 
the  inner  temple  and  have  eyes  to  see  that 
Beauty,  not  Pleasure,  is  the  shrine  at  which 
Art  ministers. 

February,  1903. 

I  cannot  help  feeling  that  the  highest 
gift  of  love,  "  when  the  Lord  hath  bruised 
him  and  put  him  to  grief,''  is  the  know- 
ledge, never  known  before,  that  love  dies 

[  ^52  ] 


OF  MRS.  WHITMAN 

not,  but  still  abides  and  irradiates  the  wait- 
ing heart,  which  still  in  the  nature  of  things 
lives  this  earth's  life  without  the  daily  pre- 
sence of  the  Beloved,  but  fed  by  a  yet  deeper 
star,  the  deathless  link  with  Heaven.  More 
and  more  I  look  upon  those  who  have  drunk 
deep  of  the  cup  of  sorrow  as  most  blessed 
in  being  set  free  from  the  power  of  cir- 
cumstances, more  like  the  angels  who  live 
in  either  world  and  pass  and  repass  through 
the  "  trembling  veil.''  And  perhaps, —  oh 
perhaps  !  —  they  only  really  know  how  to 
live  in  this  strange  world,  how  most  wisely 
to  fulfil  opportunity,  most  beautifully  to 
live  and  serve. 


TO  S.  G.  T. 

Spirit  of  dear  delight,  and  heart  of  fire, 
In  stainless  garments  of  the  sky  arrayed, 

I  see  thee  walking  where  thou  didst  aspire. 
Beautiful,  eager,  free,  and  unafraid. 

Was  the  earth  alien  that  thou  couldst  not  brook 
Longer  delay  within  its  cabined  air  ? 

Was  thy  soul  ready  for  the  larger  look 

Through  other  worlds  more  ample  and  more 
fair? 

O  empty  questions  !  Let  us  rather  dare 
Behold  thy  life  as  one  resistless  whole. 

Dwelling  with  Love  and  Beauty  unaware. 
Majestic  comrades  for  a  matchless  soul. 

Thyself  forgot,  the  stars  remembered  thee. 
And  shone  with  quenchless  ray  before  thy 
feet: 
Thou  serving  others,  angels  bent  to  thee 
On  wings  of  joy  to  do  thee  service  sweet. 
[  254  ] 


So  Heaven  was  in  thee  as  thou  art  in  Heaven, 

Uplifting  thee  to  know  the  Perfect  Will ; 
And  in  the  peace  which  God  through  thee  has 
given, 
Our  hearts  with  thine  are  free,  and  strong, 
and  still. 


14  DAY  USE 

RETUHN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

RENEWALS  ONLY--TEL.  NO.  642-3405 

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on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 

Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


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